


Will You Take Your Time

by loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dance, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Cheese, Contemporary Dance, Control Issues, Dancing, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, I Tried, Implied Sexual Content, Soft Plance, Vulnerability, dance au, this might be melodramatic af, writing dance is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 11:03:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16117076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS/pseuds/loOkMA_iTyPeLiKeDiS
Summary: Even when she stumbles. Even when she falls.Lance will catch her.





	Will You Take Your Time

**Author's Note:**

> Matt’s full name in this fic is Matteo, not Matthew. Just a personal headcanon.
> 
> Took me exactly two weeks to finish this (and a whole ass week of editing, urgh), but I’m finally done! ^^;

When Pidge first hears that she’s been chosen to play the role of Odette/Odile in Altea’s contemporary production of Swan Lake it’s through the grapevine and she’s in the middle of stretching her hamstring post-cool down on a ballet barre. Most of her wants to jump up and scream wildly, but she settles instead for a self-satisfied smirk.

Altea’s focus is in cultivating dancers who can develop their own varying personal styles. For leads with experience, their solo performances are not pre-choreographed and the dancers are expected to create and put their own spin on their dances, with Allura or Shiro around to give them tips and aid. It’s pretty avant garde and Altea is controversial for taking a lot of liberties with traditional performances in many of their productions, but they pull in large numbers for tickets, and neither Allura nor Shiro seem particularly concerned.

But at the end of the day, it’s still Swan Lake. And Pidge had still won lead.

She tamps down the urge to flip off the disappointed, groaning girls in the corner nearby her. They make no efforts to even try to hide their comments on how she doesn’t deserve the role and the usual comments that she paid her way to get a good role for the performance. Pidge ignores the dirty looks she feels on her back and continues her meticulous stretching routine, straightening her back as she lays over her outstretched leg and grasps her pointed toes to maximise her stretch. She doesn’t have time to worry about silly rumours and gossiping among fickle, jealous girls. A suffering social life doesn’t matter much to her when she has her skill and hard work as proof.

There’s a reason why Pidge is the top female dancer of the company. As the lead, Pidge knows she’ll have her work cut out for her, and a couple solos to figure out, but she’s confident she can pull this off.

After all, she’s waited and trained her whole life for this opportunity and she’s not going to mess this up. She’s definitely going to make her grandmother proud.

Pidge doesn’t actually check the bulletin board outside the main office until she’s finished changing and gathering her things, but there’s definitely a crowd surrounding it full of loud, excited, chattering students of all ages. She spots Keith’s unruly mullet and pushes her way in the crevices of different student bodies to reach him. She barely avoids getting clobbered in the head by a guy much taller than her.

“Congrats on winning lead,” Keith says by way of greeting, clapping her shoulder with a proud smile. “You’ve earned this one.”

“We’re going to be the most perfect Odette/Siegfried pair to ever exist. We’ll set the entire performance hall on fire!”

Keith looks thoroughly humoured. “Except I’m not Siegfried.”

For a second, she thinks he’s messing with her but when she checks his expression for that telltale sign of a smirk, he’s giving her a blank stare.

“I’m Rothbart. According to Shiro, my dark good looks and dance style are perfect for the role.”

It’s almost comical how long it takes her to understand what he’d said, but when she realises he really isn’t going to play the prince to her princess, dread fills her. He’s her undeniable partner in all of her end of the year evaluations if she needs a support partner and since they were children, they’ve done all their duet assignments with each other. No one is a better match for her dance style-wise, experience-wise, chemistry-wise, and the fact they’re friends will make coordinating everything easier because they’re already close. But if Keith’s not the prince, then that means someone else is and there’s only one other person she can think of who’s strong enough and talented enough to truly be able to carry a lead role.

Benno is going to be danced by Hunk, Siegfried’s mother danced by Romelle, Rizavi, Ina and various others of their best dancers are in supporting lead roles. Everyone else will be the background swans or black swans. But even before Pidge slides her gaze to the top of the board listing the lead roles, she knows exactly whose name is by Prince Siegfried.

“How the heck could you let _him_ beat you out for the role of the prince, Keith?” Pidge gives him an angry look as they wedge their way back out of the crowd to head home for the day. “Don’t tell me you’re getting rusty.”

“I don’t know what to tell you, Pidge.” Keith hitches his bag further over his shoulder. “He honestly was the better dancer this time. And truth be told, I agreed with Shiro. You were pretty much the immediate pick as soon as they saw your audition solo. So when he was doing his solo, we all thought he’d be the only who could work with your style. Or handle you, so to speak.”

“That’s so false. Keith, you’ve been my partner for how many years now?”

“And in all that time, we still don’t click. Watch him dance and I promise you’ll change your mind.”

“I have no interest in—”

Squeals of excitement outside of the window of a practice room draw their attention, and they head over, wondering why there are a bunch of girls congregating outside that room. There’s music blasting from it, and as they peek into a free corner of the window, Pidge feels her irritation mount tenfold.

Lance McClain.

The current bane of her existence.

He’s freestyling in the centre of the practice room, putting on a demonstration for Hunk and Shiro, a breathless grin on his lips and emotions brimming on the surface of his skin as he spins, leaps, caresses himself like he’s captured in the snares of an enemy he can’t resist. She can almost visualise the power this imaginary enemy has over his body, like he’s helpless to stop the possession. Like he can’t help the way his body responds, needing to dance to satisfy himself. He’s painting his own story through his dancing, and it’s extremely successful.

Pidge thinks his style is too wild, even though she can’t deny his fluidity is mesmerising to watch, made only more beautiful by the length of his limbs and the full extensions he utilises in every one of his motions. Everyone around them seems to agree, if the wild cheering is any indication. It’s annoying to her the way he can suck people into his dancing with nothing more than his eyes or smile.

But at the end of the day, he’s still unpolished, and she can see the holes in his technique, in the way his arms aren’t positioned perfectly, feet aren’t facing the right direction, in the way his centre of balance isn’t squared, the way his core isn’t tightened during his spins. Sure, he’s objectively good, but she has no use for a partner who couldn’t be bothered to learn proper technique.

Rumour had it he’d started seriously dancing only five years ago, self-taught, joined the company two years ago and rose to the top in a matter of a few months. Her focus had been ballet before she’d finally dropped her ballerina dreams and put her full energy into contemporary dance so she’d never really had many encounters with him. There’d been the one recital for the people in their age group once where they’d both had back to back solos and rehearsed together with the rest of the soloists, but other than that, the performances she tended to try out for were never the ones he chose.

Still he’s certainly famous enough in Altea as a prodigy newcomer. Whether it’s about his incredibly emotional dancing, his apparent good looks, or how good of a kisser he is, every day she’s always hearing someone or another talk about fucking _Lance McClain_. Shiro has mentioned before that Lance very much could become a proper rival for Keith—their best dancer—in a year but she refuses to ever believe that would be true.

It makes her furious like all naturally gifted dance geniuses do.

No.

Even more than that.

She’s put in night after countless late night perfecting her abilities and moves so she could be a true dancer, suffering callouses and injured toes, sprains, aching muscles and joints and bones just to get where she is and this nobody had the nerve to just easily get to the top spot with barely any work.

“I hate him,” Pidge mutters decisively.

Keith snorts, rolling his sore shoulder with a soft grunt. “I hate him too.”

She knows Keith’s comment is only in jest, mostly because Lance had won this round of their brewing rivalry. But Pidge _really_ can’t stand him. The easy grins, sparkling blue eyes full of life, the way everyone naturally gravitates to him. He draws people in with his vibrant aura, making them smile and laugh. His dancing has the same vibe to it, enrapturing, wild but controlled. It has character. It exudes who he is as a person and hypnotises the viewer from the moment they lay eyes on him.

Lance finishes his impromptu dance to extreme applause and turns around to fake bow at the audience outside the window. When he lifts his head, he makes eye contact with Pidge and blinks in surprise before his lips curve up in a small smirk. A chill runs down her back.

Without a word, she snatches Keith’s wrist and yanks him away from the viewing window.

Lance infuriates her.

 

…

 

When Allura formally introduces them to each other, Keith is helping Pidge with her open leg stretches while Shiro hangs around and keeps them company before they begin proper rehearsals for their show. Around them, lots of chatting teens and young adults also commence in their individual stretches and warm ups.

“Are you ready for all the work you’ll have to put in, Pidge?” Shiro asks congenially, stretching his own limbs in preparation for the demonstrations he’ll have to give to teach the choreo. “This is your first lead role. And you’ll have to play two different entities. I know you’ve got that computer science major to focus on too.”

“I think I’ll be fine,” Pidge says, just a touch of cockiness in her voice—because really, she’s Katie Fucking Holt, best female dancer in Altea. (Well, after Allura). Keith pulls her slowly more forward until her forehead is practically touching the dusty floor between her outstretched legs. “Nothing worthwhile is going to be easy, you know?”

She’s always been good at juggling multiple things at once, and besides, comp sci comes fairly easy to her so she can spend most of her time focused on her dancing.

“Well said,” Shiro agrees before checking the clock on the wall to make sure they’re not over.

The studio doors open, and she hears Lance’s laughter and involuntarily bristles at the melodious sound grating her nerves.

“If the pressure gets to be too much, I’ll take you out to dinner, so don’t hesitate to let me know,” Shiro says as he heads off to let people know they will be starting practice soon.

She really loves Altea and its two lead dance instructors and choreographers because of the personal time they invest in their members. Allura is the Warrior Princess of Altea with a body to die for and extremely long legs that look utterly majestic when she dances. Shiro, for all his muscles, looks more like a football player, but he’s extremely light and agile on his feet and oh so gentle and graceful. The two had been best friends and dance partners since they were eight, but Shiro predominantly became a dance coach when he lost his arm to disease years ago in his early 20s. His prosthetic is super cool though and he’s an inspiration to the disabled dance community that they can still pursue their dreams even with some setbacks.

Their vision, their large hearts, their passion for dance really shows in everything they do for the company. They’re not interested in profit. They just want to spread the joy and love of dance.

Two pairs of footsteps stop beside them, and Keith lets Pidge go so they can rise to their feet. Allura, she smiles at when she greets them both. Lance, she would rather ignore, but she gives him a curt nod in greeting. He doesn’t look particularly bothered, but he’s also not quite looking at her so much as giving her a once over—sizing her up, she knows—and part of her wants to cock a hip and flip him off. She knows subtle challenging when she sees it.

After all, that and condescension has been a staple of every achievement she’s ever made.

“Pidge!” Allura exclaims, dropping a heavy hand on Lance’s shoulder and making him flinch just the slightest. “I’m sure you already know who Lance is, but he’ll be your prince for the production.” She gestures between the two of them. “Lance, this is the Katie Holt who I was telling you about, our fantastic Odette.”

There’s a wry smile on his lips. “Ah. The person who stole my spot as your absolute favourite protégé.”

“What can I say?” Allura squeezes around Pidge’s shoulders and rubs her cheek against her fluffy hair with a goofy smile. Pidge sighs and pats Allura’s arm in defeat. She’d long since given up on getting Allura to stop treating her like the tiny nine year old she’d met years ago. “She’s too cute!”

“I see no lies there.” Lance winks at her with an easy grin and Pidge forces herself to stop thinking that his eyes are even more beautiful up close, an oceanic blue as tumultuous as the sea during a tempest. “Let’s see some moves then.”

Pidge’s nose wrinkles in annoyance and she stares at him in disdain. “What.”

“You’ve seen me dance. I want to see if you live up to my expectations.”

Arrogant and over-confident.

But there’s a challenging look in his eyes and she gets the distinct impression he refuses to accept her as a good Odette until she proves it to him. Keith glances at her with a small knowing grin, and no way is she going to back down now, especially since Hunk’s ‘ _oohs’_ nearby has called other people’s attention over to the confrontation.

“Who says you lived up to mine?” she retorts, shedding her hoodie and walking over to the cubby corners to leave it. She’s in the process of tying her hair into a cleaner bun and removing her socks and leg warmers when she starts hearing the whispers.

“She only got Odette because of her father and brother’s fame.”

“Yeah, totally. Having Katie Holt as the face on the programs will definitely be good for publicity.”

“Ina should have been Odette. She’s much prettier than Caterpillar Brows, and now poor Lance is stuck dancing with a space gremlin.”

She glances at the usual girls stretching in the corner who are giving her dirty, smug looks, and says nothing as she turns away. Pidge grits her teeth and wills herself not to respond to their provocation. This isn’t new. From the day she’d started showing herself as _the_ person to watch, her brother and father had been decided by many of the people as the sole reason behind her success. But she’d expected that, especially when her brother is the first astrophysicist to calculate the right trajectories to get a space shuttle well past the edges of their universe and back. And her father had designed and engineered the rocket that made the trip to the newly discovered universe that now graces science textbooks all over the world. Despite the mission being several years ago, the name Holt still carries a ton of fame.

They can act however they want. Pidge’s talent and skill beat them out for lead role fair and square and she would gladly continue to put them in their place by her effort. She’d put in time after and before each practice and on the weekends too just so she could get the role, asked so many tips from her dance instructors on how to become more dynamic in her audition, and invested time to make sure she absolutely got the lead.

She’d had to.

She’d promised Nonna that she’d get the lead, and nothing was going to stop her now that she had. Not some bitchy girls and especially not some cocky prick who barely has to lift a finger to succeed.

Pidge takes her place at the centre of the room and with a nod at Allura, she lets the first sounds of the dissonant instrumental wash over her of the song Allura picks. The Agnes Obel song that plays is a little faster tempo than she normally likes for her music choices, but she goes through the steps she wants, moving in time and off time to the whimsical progression of her voice.

Pidge is precise in her motions, every time she rotates, every time she extends her legs. At the height of the second chorus, she switches up her moves and begins to put more complicated motions in her work. She executes a perfect switch arabesque leap, comes to an abrupt stop and lets herself slide onto the ground before flipping over back onto her feet with one hand. There are some delighted cheers, but she ignores them, continuing the brisk pace she’s set for herself, throwing in trick after trick, refusing to let her body rest as she lets the music pry her apart bit by bit.

Unlike Lance, she doesn’t dance for an audience. She isn’t looking for their approval. She knows how good she is and she’s going to show them all. She can feel even as the energy of the song winds down that her technique has been absolutely flawless. She won’t let anyone dare say anything bad about her that she can’t prove wrong.

She’s Katie Holt. She _exceeds_ expectations.

The applause is wild when she finishes her impromptu solo, and Pidge brushes loose strands out of her face and wipes at the sweat in her bangs, exhaling and inhaling slowly to catch her breath. Keith gives her a thumbs up. Shiro is saying something excitedly to Allura who’s nodding. There’s wide eyed enthusiasm from most of the younger girls playing some swans and black swans, and Pidge does feel a sense of accomplishment.

No one can deny her talent.

But when she turns to Lance, she feels irritation mount instead. He’s clapping as well, but there’s a strange look on his face—and not in a good way—one that makes her indignant because he kind of looks displeased, like he’s eaten something sour. Soft heat blotches her cheeks. She frowns at him, but before she can confront him about it Allura calls their attention to begin teaching choreography for the lead roles. Shiro takes the rest of the supporting cast and heads out of the main studio to go teach them their choreo for their group dance.

Lance comes to stand beside her as Allura begins describing the tone of the first act and how she would like her leads to choreograph some of their own pieces in their own interpretation translated to a contemporary form. Pidge doesn’t pay much attention because she’s still cross about what she’d seen on Lance’s face. The borderline dismissal from his face is something that she knows will haunt her unless she gets the answers she wants.

“What was with that look?” she whispers.

Lance glances down at her, surprised, and she glares at him until he finally responds. “Nothing. You’re a really great dancer. I can see why they picked you as Odette.”

She senses a ‘but’ to his statement, but he doesn’t finish his comment. And then there’s no further time to press him to elaborate because Allura lines them up to begin stretches and drills and when Allura gets serious, all lips must be shut. She’s normally a sweetheart, but Allura doesn’t have the patience for bullshit and getting on her bad side will get them hella cardio workouts before practices.

 

…

 

“Knock, knock.” Pidge peeks her head into her grandmother’s bedroom. Her limbs are sore from her day’s practice and she has some codes to finish up for an assignment and she’d really like to take a hot shower, but she never goes to bed without seeing her grandma first. “You up, Nonna?”

The old woman lifts her head from her pillow, amber eyes fatigued but still vibrant and sharpening in focus as she zones in on Pidge. Today her nonna is wearing a flamboyant head scarf with flamingos doing the splits. It stands out a lot in the musty, dimmed lighting her bedroom. Pidge comes inside the room with a smile, heading straight to her grandmother and taking the outstretched hands.

“My favourite grandchild. Although, don’t tell that to Matteo.” She tries to sit up, but Pidge stops her before she can move too much. Nonna’s lips pull up into a tired, gentle smile. “I didn’t get to see you yesterday.”

“We had a long practice. I stopped by your room, but you were asleep,” Pidge answers sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck. It’d been a week of long practices because Allura had been dissatisfied with their energy and the height of their jumps and had started ending practices with more leap drills. And Pidge always tended to stay after practice ended to go over the basics again by herself, so it had messed up her usual schedule too. “Swan Lake in contemporary dance is harder than I expected.”

“Show me what you’re working on.”

Pidge steps back to clear some of the books on the carpet beside her grandmother’s bed and drops her dance bag onto a chair in the corner. She’s happy to show some of the more compact movements, cutting out portions where she’s interacting with Lance entirely. She doesn’t even want to think about the train wreck of trying to learn a duet with him this past week. Everything they had tried clashed. They could get the basic movements, but Lance was extremely expressive and she was more focused on technique so they didn’t mesh right. Allura had been getting more and more irritated with them with each passing day, and they were supposed to get to lifts already, but Pidge didn’t trust Lance would be able to support her weight when his form slipped and was sloppy at times. Pidge would rather not be dropped on her head, thank you very much.

When she finishes the small demonstration, her grandmother claps her hands happily with exclamations of ‘ _brava_!’. Pidge curtsies, a smile tugging on her face from the theatrics.

“Beautiful as always, _mia piccola bambina_ , but why don’t you smile when you dance? _You’re_ Odette. You’re in love. You’re happy. Pretend you’re dancing for your real boyfriend.”

“Sorry, I was just thinking about some idiot at practice who doesn’t have basic technique down and is slowing us all down.” Pidge snorts and hops up on her grandmother’s bed when she scootches over to make some space for Pidge. “Besides, you know there are to be no boyfriends until I’m a grown adult. House rule.”

Nonna gives her a wry look at the affected baritone. “You’re nineteen now.”

“Something Dad conveniently continues to forget. And he’s not even home most of the year.”

“It’s only because you’re too cute and he knows someone will steal you away from him.” Her grandmother takes Pidge’s hand with a chortle. “Every day, you become more and more beautiful. I know someone will see it. If not, I know plenty of good, strong Italian grandsons of my friends who would marry you in a second. In fact, my old childhood friend’s grandson is just about Matteo’s age and he just finished medical school.”

Pidge leans her head on her grandmother’s shoulder and links the fingers of their hands together, just listening to the old woman ramble on and on about men that she thinks Pidge will probably like. She inhales the peppermint and menthol and knows she’ll never tire of the scent. It’s the only true thing that can calm her when she’s frustrated because she associates it directly with her grandma. Someone she looks up to immensely.

This strong woman had raised her five children with a largely absent husband and still managed to get Colleen to adulthood intact, despite Pidge’s mom apparently being one of the most wild teenagers to ever exist. And even bedridden, she continues to fight. The doctors had said she wouldn’t last one month, and yet, here she still is at month number three and still kicking.

Pidge can’t help but feel like she’s at least waiting so she can see Pidge dance as Odette. She isn’t a prima ballerina like Nonna had been back in her young adulthood, but still, she’d kept her promise and got the lead in a production of Swan Lake. And now she wants to make sure that she honours her grandmother’s legacy by being the best Odette she can possibly be.

“You know, I’m so proud of you,” Nonna says quietly, reaching up with slightly shaking fingers and stroking Pidge’s cheek. “I’ve always known you would be a star.”

“ _Ti voglio bene_ , Nonna,” Pidge responds, planting a wet, juicy kiss on her grandma’s cheek.

She chuckles, but wrinkles her nose. “Your accent still stinks, Caterina.”

And Pidge tilts her head back and laughs and laughs.

 

…

 

“Lance! Pidge! That’s _wrong_! You have to sell your love to the audience!” Allura barks, as she jabs her finger on the pause button of the recording, significantly more impatient after the sixth time they’ve had to stop the practice for the first dance.

Lance exhales angrily through his nose as he sets her back on the ground, shooting Pidge that same look of irritation that she’s sure she’s giving him. Nearby them, the other dancing swans stop and roll their eyes. She doesn’t know why he thinks he’s not responsible for the mistakes. Learning dances with Keith is going swimmingly. Her first solo is also perfect.

Therefore, the only conclusion is that _he’s_ messing up the vibe.

And she knows he is.

Pidge knows every step to the T. She knows exactly what her body is supposed to look like and when she’s supposed to move and how she’s supposed to move, bred from late night training until she’d blistered her toes and chafed off the skin of her feet just to engrain the memory into her muscles. Keith and Shiro had both remarked that her lines are perfect. But for some reason, every time it comes to attempting to synchronise with Lance, everything looks out of sync. Their arms don’t match, their hops and kicks don’t match, their timing is all off.

It’s a trainwreck.

And what’s worst is that she can feel Lance’s sheer force of energy pulling attention off of her which in turn makes it look like she’s the one messing up.

Keith had suggested she just talk to Lance but Pidge has no interest. In fact, in the two weeks they’ve been working on it, the most they’ve spoken is pointing out a positioning mistake here or there, the occasional obligatory small talk when Allura has them come in early and there’s no one as a buffer to avoid conversing with each other, and checking in with each other during accidental collisions or slips, but that’s mostly just a courtesy thing.

There’s no shortage of dirty looks between them though.

That first interaction had definitely set the tone of their non-existent relationship and truth be told, Pidge has no interest in trying to bridge the gap. He annoys her, not just with his crazy dancing, but also how he’s always distracted by and flirting with the other girls during breaks. She just doesn’t understand what they even see in him. Yes, admittedly, Lance’s soft, floppy brown hair and his sharp jawline and those gorgeous azure eyes definitely put him in the upper tier on the spectrum of hot guys, but his personality more than knocks him down several pegs.

“Everyone. Take five.” Allura checks her watch and lets out a low growl of annoyance. “Swans! We’re going to run through your dances in Act II with Lance and Pidge again after Shiro comes back with the others. In the meantime, can someone get Hunk? I think he’s in Room 3 practicing. I’d like to check his solo.” She turns to them both and the soft disappointment in her gaze makes Pidge stiffen. “Pidge, Lance, I need you to try harder. You’re the leads in the show. Show me you understand what that means.”

“Sorry, ‘Lura.”

“Yes ma’am.”

She doesn’t miss her usual bullies in the corner snickering as she trudges by to get her water from the cubby. Pidge walks with her head held high, not even sparing them one single glance.

“Your incompetence is slowing us all down, Katie.” One of the swan girls says as she walks past them. “Can you do us all a favour and stop being so terrible?”

Pidge’s fists clench and she turns around with a haughty look. “And yet, at my worst, I can still out-dance you at your best. Must really piss you off, huh?”

She looks her nose down on them and spins off without waiting to hear whatever stupid crap they would try to use to rile her up this time. At the end of the day, they’re all just jealous and she’s succeeded where they have not. In the grand scheme of things, they’re not important, and Pidge has gotten this far because of her utmost focus. No point getting caught up in petty fights with catty girls.

“Lance, _you_ were beautiful out there! I wish I could dance with you!”

“You need a real challenge, ladies. I’m no good for you,” he responds offhandedly, sounding a bit distracted.

Pidge fights the urge to gag at his false humility as she chugs her water down, but the two eat it up and giggle.

“I think you’re exactly perfect for me. Just my type,” one of the girls purrs softly, with just enough innuendo in her voice that Pidge definitely picks up on what she’s clearly offering.

Pidge glances over with a disgusted scoff, nonplussed, and expecting some nasty display of public flirting, but is instead surprised to find Lance watching _her_ with that same strange look from her first demonstration. She nearly chokes on the water and quickly diverts her attention back to her bag. She really wishes Keith were here because the black swan crew are much easier to chill with than some awful people she’s stuck rehearsing with most of the time.

She’s unlucky though because she hears footsteps head over to her and a second later, Lance is in her space, his familiar cologne she’d been forced to inhale for too many practices clogging up her nose unwittingly.

“You mind?” she drawls, eyeing him with distaste as she readjusts the tight bun on her head. “Your groupies might enjoy this kind of proximity, but I value my space.”

“You know, Pidge, sometimes when we dance, it feels like you’re just moving for the sake of moving. It lacks sincerity,” he remarks in an accusatory tone, and Pidge stiffens, her hands stilling in her hair. “Why do you dance like you have a time limit? You have to feel the music.”

It’s a question that shocks her not just because she doesn’t expect it, but also because something about it hits too close to home. Pidge releases a long, angry breath. She hesitates just enough that Lance clearly thinks he’s figured something out about her if the self-satisfied grin on his dumb face is any indication. But before he can bask in whatever victory he thinks he’s gained, Pidge rounds on him and jabs him in the stomach.

“That’s _Katie_ to you. We’re not all carefree goofballs who have nothing going on in their lives and spend all their time flirting. _I’m sorry_ that I don’t have an empty head like you. But this performance has to be perfect, and maybe you should start examining your own habits and work to improve yourself before you try to single out mine,” Pidge hisses angrily, keeping her voice low enough that only he can hear her, but sharp enough that he understands she means business. “Case in point: that one hand overhead lift we failed on? Your hand wasn't in the right place on my back. If I had even attempted to assume my split, I would have fallen and probably broken something. I can’t even trust you to execute a proper lift because you’re more interested in finding your next lay than focusing. I’d rather not have to drop out due to an injury because of an incompetent partner.”

Her words have her desired effect and seeing the irritation climb in his gaze makes her satisfied. It also makes her stomach roil in discomfort and shame, but she ignores it in favour of the gratification she gets at watching that stupid smile of his drop from his face.

“Wow. And here I thought people were exaggerating about you being a coldhearted bitch.”

“Disappointed?” she spits out, pushing down that familiar pain she’d learned to ignore many many years ago.

Who cares what they think? Pidge knows who her real friends are. She knows they know who she truly is. Even if she only has a few people in her corner, that’s what matters. She’d learned the hard way what it was like having friends who were only interested in getting five seconds of fame, so long as she could provide it.

“Yeah. That you have a really closed off, ugly personality. I thought you were different.” His answering sneer is downright nasty. “You should fix that, you know? It reflects in your dancing.”

It’s a harsher blow than she’d ever expected and despite her wishes that the moron would have no effect on her, her heart squeezes in her chest and it takes all of Pidge’s mental training to keep her neutral expression on her face as Lance walks away with a disgusted shake of his head. She presses her fingernails into her palms until the pain in her hands overtakes the tightness in her chest.

After that, any attempts to make their first dance go better go straight down the drain, they’re abysmal dancing together, they don’t even bother making any eye contact, and Allura ends their practice early, barking at them to give her fifty sets of ten different leg exercises for the dispassionate delivery they just showed her. Lance doesn’t say another word to Pidge the rest of the night. So she doesn’t either.

After everyone is done for the day, Allura and Shiro lecture them for another five minutes over their behaviour when they’re supposed to be role models and leaders. They leave them with a warning that such careless dancing won’t be tolerated again.

They’re dismissed and she pretends it doesn’t hurt when Lance walks by her with Hunk and stares past her like she doesn’t exist.

 

…

 

On a rare day Pidge doesn’t have any class or practice, she spends it at home, restless and attempting to get procrastinated homework finished. When that gets done, she deep cleans her room for the first time in almost two years and finds so many things she had forgotten she even owned or that she thought she’d lost. A ballet slipper from years ago she originally had thought she lost on the bus, a compression knee brace she used to use when her leg got sore from practicing fouettes in her tween years, her textbook for the stat class she’d taken last year.

It’s mundane and she finds herself distracted more than once, but it’s the only thing she can think to do while she waits for her mother to return with her grandmother from the hospital. It’s the usual weekly checkup to monitor her body.

To see how much longer she might have.

Pidge hates it because she can do nothing but wait.

Ultimately, she decides to see if she can get a spark of inspiration for part of her finale dance. She kisses her fingertips and places them gently on the lifesize poster she has on her wall of her nonna as Odette in her ballet company’s production almost fifty years ago. It’s gorgeous and her grandmother looks radiant in a perfect fouetté arabesque jump caught in just the right moment, her arms extended gracefully and pain and heartbreak swirling in her expressive amber eyes as she looks at the camera. It’s the advertisement they’d used for the show Nonna headlined and Pidge considers it her lucky charm any time she needs inspiration.

Pidge isn’t sure how long she runs through basics and steps, sequencing moves until she feels she has some semblance of the beginning of a solo that will knock the socks off of the audience, but when she feels exhaustion catch up she winds up taking a nap.

When she wakes up, it’s dark outside, and she stumbles out of her room to the kitchen in search of something to eat. Her mother is boiling some tripe on the stove, which is normal, except Pidge can see the tension in her shoulders and the slight hunch of her back and without asking, she can tell the trip to the oncologist didn’t bring such uplifting news.

“No practice today?” her mother asks, moving asparagus in a pan absentmindedly as she adds salt.

“Day off while Shiro teaches some of the younger teens their dances.” Pidge peeks around her mom’s shoulder to look in the pot. “I finished up some homework and cleaned my room.”

“Katie.”

Pidge bristles at her tone, but doesn’t respond as she turns away. She knows exactly what’s about to come—the same conversation her mother always brings up whenever they visit the oncologist—and she absolutely does not want to hear it. She hadn’t wanted to hear it three months ago, and she still doesn’t care to hear it now.

“Your grandmother wants people to remember her by the achievements she accomplished while she was active. I was thinking about meeting up with your uncle Giuseppe next week to go through our photos to put together a slideshow of her routines and her training to becoming prima ballerina. Would you like to join us? You’ve always loved looking at her journey.”

“No.”

Pidge starts to leave the kitchen without another word, a frog feeling like it’s lodged itself in her throat.

Her mother sighs and sets the mixing spoon on the counter. “ _Katie_ … Please understand. It’s hard that this is happening. I don’t want to think about this either but we need to—”

“But _nothing_!” Pidge interrupts sharply. “Mom, I’m not talking about this right now. I don’t want to hear it.”

“Just listen to—”

“La la la la la! Can’t hear you!”

She feels bad and it’s immature, but she’s really not here for it, and she’s on the cusp of the most important performance of her life. She can’t have this hanging over her head.

She runs to her grandmother’s room because her turbulent emotions are eating away at her and she desperately needs to see her.

“You shouldn’t fight with your mother, _cucciola_ ,” Nonna says quietly, though she keeps her eyes closed, her face twisted in a slight expression of pain. “You have to stay strong with each other while your father and brother are in DC. She’s not trying to hurt you. She’s on your side.”

“She was being stupid. Saying things that she shouldn’t say,” Pidge grumbles, sliding into the chair beside her grandmother’s bed and taking the hand resting on the covers.

It’s sad because she usually gets along well with her mom about everything, but the situation with her grandmother has brought a slight tension between them because they don’t approach it the same way.

“She always has your best interests at heart. She’s trying to prepare you for—”

“Nonna,” Pidge says quietly, squeezing her hand once before leaning forward and pressing a kiss on her forehead, “you need to get some rest.”

Her grandmother’s eyes barely open a crack as she gazes up at Pidge sadly. “…My sweet, sweet Caterina. What’s going to happen to you?”

Without her.

The words she doesn’t say stab Pidge right in the heart, and she has to blink multiple times just to fight off the moisture gathering under her eyelids.

Her grandmother falls asleep, and once Pidge makes sure she’s comfortable, she calls Keith to pick her up because she wants to go to the gym near his place for a workout. He thankfully doesn’t ask her why her voice is wavering, she grabs her dance bag, stuffs it with some gym clothes, and leaves their home before her mother can try to seek her out again.

 

…

 

Pidge knows her Odile is absolutely riveting.

It’s not hard to play the demented, beguiling evil clone. And her strong ballet foundation makes the thirty-two fouettés relatively easy to do, though she does travel a bit unintentionally. She shows off a bit when she completes all her rotations, adding a chunk of rapid grand pirouettes, and she can’t help but preen at the looks of awe everyone gives her when she completes the infamous sequence. Her legs are burning and her knee feels a little pained from the stress and she’s trying to keep her chest from heaving after the effort it took to finish the turns, but she loves the fact that she’s left people speechless. Other people practicing their routines in various corners had all stopped to give her their undivided attention. She especially relishes in the fact that Lance can’t seem to take his eyes off her. Despite the fact that Siegfried is supposed to look awestruck in this scene, he’s not acting. That’s real surprise on Lance’s face.

She’s really tempted to rub it in his face that this kind of thing is possible to be accomplished when one puts emphasis on properly training in the basics like she’d been doing for the past ten years, but she settles instead for a raised eyebrow at him when Shiro has to call him out to focus.

But for all the success she has playing Odile, it’s _Odette_ that gives her trouble. It requires immense and constant vulnerability and softness and trust in Siegfried that she’s a little opposed to dancing. And she just can’t seem to get it right because she can’t tap into the emotions she’s supposed to show as the Swan Princess. She’s supposed to dance confidently but delicately and she can’t seem to find that balance.

With Keith, even playing as Odette, she can get all her dances perfectly. But whenever she has to dance with Lance, something is always off. Not enough eye contact, not enough soothing touch, not enough chemistry, failure to connect, too stiff, no lucidity, not enough emotion. The list is neverending and by the end of practice, Pidge has had enough of running through the same dances in Act II over and over. Each successive failure leads to Lance looking progressively more annoyed too which in turn makes the next attempt worse and so on and so forth goes the descent. And the directions Allura gives tend to be directed towards her which makes it worse because Lance doesn’t seem to have any trouble at all with this whole emotional crap.

The next day, Allura guides her to a private room and informs her she’ll be practicing on her own away from all the other students until she can get this dance right.

“Pidge, you can pull off a convincing Odette with your sheer skill alone. You’re extremely talented, don’t get me wrong. But you and Lance, your styles aren’t clicking because you’re not trying to find common ground. But I know what I see when you both dance and you could create something absolutely magical if you only tried to see it from each other’s viewpoint.”

Pidge starts to hang her head in shame. She hates disappointing Allura after all the effort and attention the woman has put on her. But Allura takes her chin and tilts it back up gently as if to remind her to never let her confidence slip.

“I know what kind of feelings I want to draw from my audience. Like I said, your abilities alone are definitely enough to entice them, but I need more dramatic passion from you, Pidge. I should be weeping and breathless after your performance. You’ve committed to die because the man you love mistakenly professed his love for another and must marry her. You love him and you’ve forgiven him, but he broke his vow, and you can’t live in a world where you’ve been betrayed. You’re forever trapped as a swan and your heart is shattered. Make me weep, Pidge. I want to cry. I want you to rip my heart out in agony. Make me feel your pain.”

And then the dreaded words.

“I’ve put on your schedule one on one time with Lance for the next weeks to get your duets right. Tragic love is so powerful and if you can portray it through dance properly, it will resonate within everyone’s hearts. I chose you as Odette because I know you can accomplish this. You have so much untapped potential, so much emotion deep in those young eyes. Pull it out of you. Show me that side of you, Pidge, the side I saw first in that bright eyed little nine year old who refused to stop practicing no matter what her instructors said.”

Allura leaves her with those words and about fifteen minutes later Lance enters the room. She’s not sure what lecture he got, but he looks a little put out and when their eyes meet, she sees vexation glinting in his eyes.

Their conversation is clipped, but they agree to run through the final dance a couple times and point out what they think the other should work on. It’s good enough for now, considering they don’t particularly get along. They’re civil, or at least somewhat civil, but there’s no need for excessive conversation if they don’t need it.

But ever since he’d said that crap to her about her dancing being ugly, she’s taken that as a challenge to show him just how wrong he is. Like she intends to do this night.

She knows he knows she’s really good. She can see the begrudging respect in his gaze when she combines and executes insanely difficult manoeuvres that would have some professionals stumped. She can feel how impressed he is when Allura suddenly switches up a move in the choreo to something significantly harder and Pidge is able to jump into it with few stumbles. But when they finish working on the dance for the second time, instead of his usual subtle nod she expects when she does something right, Lance scowls.

She pauses from restarting the music, narrowing her eyes as she marches up to him. “Alright, what is your _problem_? Why do you keep making faces at me when I dance? I’m not making any mistakes.”

“Maybe not. I admit your technique is practically flawless, but you’re way too robotic for Odette. Chill out when you dance a bit. Feel the music. Let it resonate with you as you dance so that it can resonate with the people watching you,” Lance responds hotly without missing a beat. “You dance like you always have something to prove! And dancing a duet isn’t something you do alone, you know? You have to have _some_ trust in me! A duet isn’t two people dancing their own respective dances at the same time. We need to dance together as one unit.”

“I do always have something to prove. I’m the lead in a dual role. I can’t slack or give anyone a reason to think I can’t handle the pressure.” She’s in a family of prodigies. How else is she supposed to make her mark? “And I’m trying to be the best. You might not understand it, but we weren’t all born with genius talent. I had to work to get to where I am for a decade. If I even slow down a little bit, everyone else will catch up to me. So get bent. I don’t want a lecture about this from someone who doesn’t have to do anything but smile and bat his eyelashes to gain support from everyone.”

Lance’s cheeks turn blotchy red from fury. “You know fuck all about me so stop acting as if I just coasted by on my good looks or something! Getting to where I am took a lot of work and sacrifices I’m still making to this day! I only get to see my family in Cuba about twice a year, if my grades slip even a little, I lose my scholarship at school, and I’m barely able to keep up because I have to teach beginner’s Latin dance classes here in exchange for dancing for Altea because I can’t even afford being at this company. And even then, I have to bartend part-time at shit hours of the night to pay the rent and lead some semblance of a life. Hunk pays most of our rent thankfully so I don’t have to work until dawn, but between teaching, finishing school work, and the bartending I have so little time to work on the craft I love. There’s no such thing as down time in my life. You’re _privileged_ that you could afford classes for years and dance to your heart’s content whenever you fucking want because I didn’t and still don’t have that.”

Pidge swallows tightly, her eyes widening at what he reveals.

“So what I’m self-taught and picked it up easy? Do you think I don’t know my own shortcomings?! I see people like Keith and especially _you_ who look so professional and know all these techniques and shit from years of work and I know I’ll never look like that unless I can devote five plus hours a day getting lessons, which I can’t. My lack of formal training will always limit me getting jobs, no matter how good I look. So yeah, maybe dancing is a skill that comes naturally to me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have to work my ass off too. So you can take that attitude and shove it right up _your_ ass. You’re not the only one struggling, and maybe if you realised that, you wouldn’t act so condescending to everyone around you. And then maybe people would like you.”

Pidge grits her teeth, ignoring the sting from his words. “People like me plenty.”

“You’re off-putting, you never apologise when you’re wrong or hurt someone, and this whole ‘woe is me, I’m the only one suffering, I’m all alone’ attitude drives people away! Do you even care what kinds of things people say about you behind your back?”

“I don’t,” she snaps gruffly. “People will always hate whoever’s on top. I can’t help that. It’s not my fault people are jealous assholes who can’t be professional.”

“They might acknowledge that you’re the best and respect your abilities, but at the end of the day, no one is going to care to watch someone they think is utterly pretentious. Last year during the rehearsals for our recital, I thought you were just driven and I found that impressive, but I was right that I noticed something off with your dancing even back then. You’re lacking something important when you dance and it’s really not a good look. You dance only for yourself. No trust in or love for your audience, no trust in your fellow dancers—”

“ _So_? What’s wrong with trusting only yourself?! If you want something done right you—”

“We’re partners in a fucking dance about lovers!” he shouts back, cutting her off when he gets in her face, blue eyes flashing. “There’s no such thing as a _yourself_. We have to work together if we’re going to make this work and that means that you have to relinquish that control you have and trust me a bit more! Open up your heart. Show some vulnerability sometimes. Take a leap of faith, pun completely intended.”

He has no right lecturing her like this. Maybe he might think relinquishing control is just that easy, but she can’t trust people. He knows nothing about her either. How trying to befriend people, how opening up to them had just proven to her that she was only useful so long as others had something to gain from her. Pidge trusts very few people out of necessity, otherwise she’s going to get hurt. Someone as flaky as Lance would never understand when people naturally gravitate towards him, love him just because he’s him. She steps into any activity and the first thoughts people have is that she’s paid her way or used fame to achieve anything. No success is hers, and her being a Holt leads to automatic hatred and jealousy before she even opens her mouth. They don’t even know just who her grandmother is, but she can guarantee if they find out, it’ll be used as fodder for the very same accusations.

When she doesn’t respond, Lance huffs out a sigh, his shoulders slumping. “This is getting nowhere. There’s no getting through a hardheaded person’s hard head through talk.”

She pointedly ignores his insult. “So that’s that then? We fail and Allura gives us the punishment of our life?”

“I don’t fail anything I attempt.” Lance takes several steps back from her until the length of the practice room is between them. “We’re trying that lift from Dirty Dancing. No practice. No spotters.”

“You’re insane.”

“Sure. But when Nyma had some reservations trusting me during our duet last year, she made me do it with her and it took the edge off.” He sets himself in position, planting his feet and giving her an expectant look, blue eyes imploring. “We need to build trust and you seem like the kind of person who will be more receptive to actions over words.”

She isn’t open to the idea, but Lance’s confidence is very contagious and she finds herself actually thinking he can pull it off for a few seconds. But Pidge is very small and the few times she’d seen Nyma before the woman left the company to dance for a pop artist, she’d been roughly the same height as Shiro. Maybe taller. Pidge is very conscious of the fact that if he doesn’t catch her right she’s going to pull a flying squirrel right into the windows.

“If I don’t drop you, it automatically proves you can trust me,” Lance says, and his twisted logic actually makes some sense to her. “This kind of thing works. C’mon, Pidge.”

“Stop calling me Pidge.” She rolls her eyes. “I didn’t give you permission. And my name is _Katie_.”

He doesn’t budge from his stance. “I may not have the most perfect technique, but I know how to support you properly and carry your weight. I wouldn’t drop you. Ever.”

There’s an inkling of hurt in his voice and she knows he’s referencing their fight a while ago. Honestly, this whole time she’d barked at him left and right about the mistakes in his form from the moment they’d started practicing together. She must have been slowly tearing into his insecurities with each of her comments. Which is why she knows it’s her damn guilt that leads her to actually considering doing this. In a way, she kind of understands that this is a test for both of them.

A test that she can let go of the tight reigns she has over control and share the lead with him. And a test for him to prove he’s capable of being her proper partner.

To prove that she can trust him and that he can trust her.

“If you drop me…”

“I won’t,” Lance asserts firmly.

And she believes him.

Pidge still can’t quite understand what compels her to actually go through with this godawful, insane plan and she knows if Allura or Shiro ever catch wind of this, she and Lance both would be hung, drawn, and quartered, and yet she still takes off running towards him, she still leaps into his waiting arms, and she squeezes her eyes shut, tightening her body and core and stretching out her arms and legs. He catches her by the hips and pushes her up well above his head and she can feel how high she truly is, especially considering his height, and pushes down the uncomfortable rolling in her gut, holding the position and forcing herself to get used to Lance’s steady support.

All things considered, she can feel the power in his lift, the strength in his palms and hands and slowly, she opens her eyes. Most dancers have tried this lift before for fun, and she’s no exception, so she understands how tenuous the position is, how she cannot break form and how he has to redirect her momentum to lift her and stop her completely without causing her to careen past his head or causing himself to stumble. Even where he’s holding her up has to be perfectly balanced or she could tip over.

And he’s succeeded in all of that and more.

His arms don’t shake even a little, they have not swayed even once, and his hold on her is so firm that she can’t really move out of place either. Even if she drops her position, he’ll still have her. She realises in horror, even if she tries to convince herself she still doesn’t trust him, her body has relaxed and the fear that had been making her stomach feel weird has since dissipated.

“I think that’s enough…” Pidge mutters quietly, so Lance sets her back down on the ground.

When her feet touch the floor, they’re too close. She can see the flecks of bronze in his irises and the hands on the skin of her waist cause an unexpected flare of heat. She takes a sharp step away from him, holding her arm and chewing on the inside of her mouth.

Damn him.

“You closed your eyes when you jumped. You never do that,” Lance says with a small smile toying on the corner of his lips. “Does that mean you trust me now?”

She doesn’t respond, although she knows that by not refuting his question, she’s affirming his comment. It’s not just trust she has in him now though. She understands that he’s capable. Just as capable as Keith is. She can rely on him, though she’s not sure if that feeling had been bred from just the lift or also a combination coupled from him revealing what his life has been like.

“You know, Pidge. You can’t dance a duet on your own. It’s give and take. You _have to_ relinquish some of that control and let me guide you,” he repeats softly with a sigh, walking past her to head back towards the iPod to turn the music back on.

“Lance,” she finally says.

He doesn’t respond, but she hears him stop moving and his clothes rustling as he turns back to face her.

“You… you’re right, okay?” She turns to look at him and the wide eyed look of his surprise nearly makes her giggle. “I don’t need your sympathy or anything. But I’ve been bullied and mocked since I became a dancer. It still happens. There are a lot of people who just assume I’m some spoiled brat who uses money and fame to get everywhere. It’s hard for me to open up. I don’t want to get hurt. So I learned to dance on my own even when other people dance with me. If you can’t join them, beat them to a pulp.”

The corner of his lips quirk up like he’s trying not to laugh. “That’s not a saying.”

“It’s the saying I adopted when a bunch of friends I thought I’d made ripped up my tutu and ballet tights and slippers and laughed when I cried. All because I couldn't get them on TV. Ever since then, I decided not to open up. It’s just my natural inclination, and I guess I acted that way to you because… you irritated me since you have no trouble getting people to love you for you.”

He’s paying serious attention to her words, but she senses no pity from him and she appreciates that. “That sounds like a lonely existence…”

“You get used to it at some point. Besides, at least I have Keith.”

“Still. You don’t deserve that.” Lance heads over to the iPod to reset the music. “And at the very least, you have me now too. I guess. If you want to let me in.”

He’s completely leaving it up to her if she wants to turn their relationship around. And Pidge knows he’s reached out halfway. She has to meet him the other half.

“I’m sorry I called you empty headed, Lance. And for talking shit about your dancing.” And she really means it. “And for making inferences about your life when I had no idea what you’re going through.”

Lance stares at her for a few seconds before he nods, a playful smile on his lips. “I had the wrong idea about you too. But I’m not sorry I called you a bitch. You really were acting like one then.”

She bites her lower lip to keep her grin from stretching across her face. “Fine. Fair enough.”

He taps through the playlist, searching for one of the songs they will use for their earlier duet. “So… you wanna start over?”

He’s not just talking about the dance routine.

She nods and shakes his hand when he holds it out to her.

Tentative truce. It’s small, but it’s a start, and she’ll take it.

 

…

 

From that day on, Lance greets her enthusiastically every day and makes sure to stop by no matter what she’s doing to say goodbye before he leaves. At first, it’s jarring and extremely annoying and she wants to ignore him, but his smile is too inviting and too open and friendly and she finds herself unable to because she can’t help but feel like ignoring him would be the same thing as kicking a damn puppy. Keith pokes fun at her all the time, saying she looks like she’s pulling teeth every time she greets Lance.

(It feels that way at first. And most times she tries to run and hide when she sees him enter the studio, but he always finds her and she suspects either Hunk or Keith are ratting her out).

But soon enough, she finds his daily greeting a welcome part of usual life. Soon enough she starts to approach him first too. Soon enough, small talk no longer becomes a chore and she’ll crack a dry comment or joke with him every once in a while.

(And absolutely relish the fact that she can make him genuinely laugh).

On occasion, if he gets out of his university classes early enough, he’ll join her before rehearsals start when she does her drills on the basics. She knows how hard it is to relearn certain techniques, so when his toes are pointed out instead of in or his arm is crooked, she gently points it out in a more encouraging manner. Their camaraderie vastly improves to the point that Shiro tells them he’s glad this newfound chemistry between them translates into the duets they have to do together.

Even more shocking is an evening when practice runs late because everyone is really into it and working hard and when Allura and Shiro finally decide to call it quits for the night, Lance picks her up and spins her around because they aced that dance. And her face goes totally red and her pulse picks up because she isn’t expecting it—and because he’s really warm and his arms feel really strong around her and he smells really good—but he doesn’t seem to notice that his sudden disregard of personal boundaries has her in a tizzy.

As usual, their two co-leaders use the final few moments while people are gathering their bags to let them all know what to work on for the next rehearsal.

“Much better improvement in the duets, Pidge, but I still want to see even more emotion from you. Your expressions are also a huge part, so try to work the emotions of the piece into your face as well. Great work today.” Allura gives her a quick hug and then lopes away to give someone else their daily feedback.

“If it were anyone other than robot Katie, they could do the emotions better…”

Before Pidge can say anything to respond to the not so quiet insult from one of the swans nearby, Lance overhears and says, “We can never know for sure, but c’mon. Seriously? Give credit where credit is due. Pidge still does a fantastic job painting a picture with her dancing. I think she’s a beautiful dancer.”

It’s especially shocking because he does keep calling her Mr. Roboto when they do their private duet practices together. She doesn’t hear the rest of the conversation because Keith distracts her when he shows her a bruise on his hip. But she really can’t help the smile tugging on her lips as she zips up her combat boots and puts on her jacket.

Much later, as she’s finally heading out of the studio doors into the cool October night air, rapid footsteps follow her.

“Pidge! Hey, wait up! Were you really going to leave without saying goodbye?”

Lance is following her, arms kind of tangled on his scarf as he tries to put it on his neck. His nose is kind of pink already from the cold, and she has to look away before she starts laughing.

“That’s _Katie_ ,” she says, bemused as she watches him attempt to get his long arms out of the entanglement. “And you have my number. Just call if it bothers you that much.”

He scratches the back of his head, a faint blush on his cheeks. “Yeah, but… I like seeing your eyes when I say it. You look all happy and they light up. And it’s cute.”

Pidge blames the cold for the reason her cheeks are red. She opts for shuffling her feet in the grass nearby instead of some dumb response that will definitely escape her lips.

“Anyway, I was wondering if you wanted to go to dinner or something before I go to work? Hunk and I can’t have dinner cuz he has two dates tonight and Keith isn’t giving you a ride today so I thought maybe you wanted some company.”

“That’s thoughtful. And _dates_ , huh?” Pidge remarks, impressed.

“Hunk can get it.”

Pidge tries not to laugh out loud from his response but she can’t help the snort and her smile and Lance definitely sees her try to hide it because he full on beams at her.

“Yes! I made you laugh.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“True but you rarely smile, so this is as good as a laugh to me.” He steps closer, hiking his dance bag further up his shoulder. “So what do you say to dinner?”

“I don’t know…” she mutters, pulling out her phone to check the time. Going out to eat would make her return even later than normal and she wouldn’t get a chance to talk to Nonna that day. “It’s kind of late already.”

“I promise I won’t keep you out longer than your curfew,” Lance says in a teasing voice, reaching out to tug gently on the part of her bang flopping in the middle of her forehead. “You live with your mom since your brother and father are in DC, right?”

She nods. “I don’t have a curfew though, it’s just…”

“If your mom needs affirmation that I’m not some perverted jackass, I can totally call her myself.” He takes her phone out of her hand and starts scrolling through her contacts to find her mother. “I’ll tell her that you couldn’t resist my charms and insisted on dinner. But I promise nothing untoward will happen.”

“Lance! Okay, I get it!” She laughs, trying to get it back while he holds it up way above her head. She can see his finger dangling above the contact _MamaBear!!_ and she knows he’s really not playing about calling her mom. And she really doesn’t want that because her mother will tease the crap out of her. “It’s fine, Lance! I’ll have dinner with you!”

She’d just have to make sure to check in on Nonna at intervals. When she texts her mom that she’s having dinner with a friend her mother starts sending goofy texts about whether that’s her secret boyfriend. Pidge refuses to dignify that with an answer and before Lance can peek over her shoulder to see the response, she has her phone screen shut and locked.

“So where are we eating?”

He starts off walking down the sidewalk and she falls into step beside him. “Hunk and my place. It’s nearby.”

“You cook?” It’s unexpected but not totally unbelievable.

Lance puffs up in pride. “And really well too, thanks to Hunk’s culinary prowess and training. Surprised?”

“Pleasantly,” she deadpans.

“Don’t fall for me yet, Shorty.” Lance gives her a saucy wink and Pidge sighs and looks pointedly away. “I have lots more tricks up my sleeves.”

It doesn’t take them long to get to the apartment about three blocks away and then she’s chilling on the kitchen counter eating some of Hunk’s cookies (divine) while Lance makes chicken cacciatore with homemade garlic knots, and she can’t deny that it’s a really attractive look on him.

(And she also can’t deny that a part of her feels giddy at the possible prospect that maybe he chose to make an Italian dish to impress her or something).

Hanging out with Lance is easy. He listens attentively and doesn’t seem to judge her, not to mention the genuine interest he has in her comp sci major and her talking about infinite loops and other coding things that he clearly doesn’t understand. Lance is not a science or math guy at all, but she finds it sweet that he still makes an effort anyway.

He tells her about Cuba and his huge family back home and his favourite niece and how he came to the states for college and one day was dancing in a park to some violinist who was busking and Allura saw him and joined him in an impromptu duet and the rest was history. She’d introduced him to Hunk who also came for school and helped them find their apartment. His oldest brother apparently had known the owner of a Latin dance club and got Lance the job as a bartender even though he’d only been seventeen at the time. Apparently he’d always been something of a dancer, but he didn’t seriously jump into contemporary and lyrical dancing until he was close to finishing high school.

“But dance has always been part of my soul. I came out of the womb dancing, you know?” Lance gets this far off look in his eyes as he prods the chicken on the stove. “My mom would play her favourite songs in the kitchen and apparently I would choreograph on the fly.  I just want to make her and my family proud. I want to show them that difficult dreams do come true with hard work.”

Maybe they’re not so different after all.

“You’re insanely intelligent,” he points out after their companionable silence draws out a little too long. “You probably could do anything. What made you pick dance?”

She stares at the cookie in her hand and debates telling him, but his earnest gaze is calling her to open up and he’s been nothing but open and honest with her this whole time. It’s about time she returns the favour.

“My grandmother is my biggest inspiration. She was a prima ballerina in her time dancing and also was Odette in her ballet company’s production. I just want to live up to her legacy. She’s always been extremely supportive of me. My whole family has, but you know, she’s special.”

Lance must see something in her expression because his gaze softens. “She must be proud that you snagged Odette. I bet she’ll be wowed at opening night.”

If she makes it that far.

“The doctor’s prognosis hasn’t quite been optimistic that she’ll make it that far. He said one month. She’s almost on month four now, but I can see her getting weaker. Quieter. More weary. She sleeps more now too.” Pidge puts the cookie down, pursing her lips though she doesn’t avert her gaze. “I’m scared she has a time limit. That _we_ have a time limit. And the show is still almost two months away and each passing day my fears get greater because… what if…”

Lance sets a gentle hand on her knee. “I understand.”

Somehow, she knows he does, and he doesn’t press anymore because she knows he understands just how huge a step this is for her to reveal that aspect of her life. They stare at each other for way longer than they should, and it’s only when the timer goes off for the oven that Lance breaks his gaze and goes to take out the knots.

Thankfully, after this the conversation swerves in safer directions. She tells him she knows how to rig the coding in Killbot Phantasm for infinite lives on the final level against the dragon and Lance’s head damn near explodes.

She doesn’t know how long they do end up spending talking long after dinner ends (a dinner that is actually really good) but when Hunk returns from his date, she realises how super late it is. She declines Hunk’s offer for a ride—he looks winded and she feels bad—but when she gets in the cab to take her home, she can’t wipe that stupid grin off her face and Lance’s soft gaze won’t leave her mind. And his smile. And the cute little twitchy thing he does with his nose when he’s describing something he finds aggravating. And how his laughter rings out loud and unabashed. And how goofy he is sometimes, but also really deep and super pleasant and she can listen to him talk for hours because his voice is sorta deep, but also really mellow and soothing.

When he waves goodbye from his balcony as the cabby drives off, she can’t shake the feeling that it kind of feels like a date. All that’s missing is… a kiss.

The thought gets her blushing, but undeniably, she can definitely say that she and Lance are friends now.

 

…

 

“Keith!” Pidge laughs, trying to kick at him. “You can’t put your hand on Odette’s ass! This is a PG show!”

Nonna laughs heartily from her seat on the porch, which definitely gets Keith cracking a proud grin that he managed to delight her grandma. It’s a nice rare weekend when her grandmother isn’t confined in bed because the weather was oddly warm that day, but instead sitting on the porch basking in the early evening sunlight while Keith and Pidge try to choreograph some more solos for the show. They’re mostly goofing off by this point though.

“The Rothbart in you is strong, Keith,” her grandmother snarks. Then she grins. “I would love to see your duet for the prologue.”

So Keith counts off and they run through the prologue with Rothbart and Odette while humming and singing the dramatic music and Nonna just loves it, especially the part when they both do very fast pirouettes around each other in time with each other like a cyclone and come out of it abruptly into a side aerial straight into a knee drop and roll on the ground and the next set of moves where he acts like a puppet master and she can’t break out of his spell. Every move she does mirrors his only much more dramatic and pained as if her limbs have a mind of their own. It’s a fun sequence that always has Shiro beaming with pride and other people not in the show stopping after their own practices to watch in the windows.

When they’re done, they fall on the ground panting in exhaustion.

Nonna coughs a bit before addressing them both with a happy smile. “You two have unbelievable chemistry as duet partners! It’s fantastic.”

“Not as good chemistry as her and Lance though. You should see the way they look at each other when they dance now. Pretty sure Pidge has a crush on him.”

Pidge gasps. “I do not!”

“She absolutely does. That’s why she can’t dance with him properly. Her face is always red now when he holds her too closely. And two weeks ago, he scooped her up princess style for fun and you could easily see the heart eyes on her face.”

“That is absolutely not true!” Pidge tries to kick at Keith again, but he moves swiftly out of her way. “He’s a liar, Nonna. Don’t believe anything he says!”

“I mean, when Lance gets here you can see for yourself,” Keith tells her grandmother.

And that freezes her.

“What? What the hell are you talking about?”

“I texted him and Hunk a while ago if they wanted to practice with us, and they said they’d love to. He has two hours to kill before his bartending shift apparently.”

Pidge glares at Keith, but he ignores her angry look. “You’re no longer invited to my house, you hear?”

“Why do you object so much though? It’s not like you like him, right?” he says in a mocking tone.

When the two boys do arrive in Hunk’s truck about a half hour later, Pidge has had ample time attempting to throttle Keith, but all of her nerves suddenly return full force when Lance waves at her and _oh God_ , all of a sudden it’s like he’s in slo-mo and his crooked smile is really cute and she can’t look away from him and he stops right in front of her, hands in the pockets of his sweatpants, and she knows he’s not about to kiss her, but she kind of wishes that he would because he has this _look_ in his eyes and Pidge’s heart starts singing like a hummingbird.

“Hi,” he says all soft.

Pidge swallows hard. “Hey.”

It’s only when Hunk suddenly screams in excitement that they finally break out of whatever spell they’re in and spin around because they never knew Hunk could get his voice that high pitched.

“Holy shit! I was wondering why Pidge’s eyes seemed so familiar, why she looked kind of familiar, but I couldn’t place it!” Hunk hops up and down, gushing and pointing between her and her grandmother. “You’re _the_ Ginevra Ricci! I’ve seen every one of the taped performances and ballets you’ve been in! You are just one of the most beautiful ballerinas I have ever seen. The power and precision and grace in your moves! The elegance you exude with your body! The emotion you force into our hearts with your eyes! I can’t believe you never told me your grandmother is _the_ Ginevra Ricci.”

“ _Shhh_ … not so loud Hunk,” Pidge implores him while glancing around to see if any eavesdropping neighbours are around. “It’s a well-kept secret.”

Nonna laughs and laughs while Pidge partially groans. Hunk is kind of a gossip and she’s not sure she wants it to get out about her grandmother just yet.

“Well come here and give me a hug, _puccipucci_ ,” Nonna says, opening her arms up as Hunk makes a choked sound of absolute sheer joy. “It’s an honour to meet someone with a beautiful heart of your calibre.”

When all is said and done, Hunk gets like thirty pictures with her, she signs a bunch of stuff he has in his car, and she gives him a long, tight hug, a kiss on the cheek, and mutters something in his ear that has Hunk’s eyes sparkling in pure happiness. Pidge watches it all slightly warily, but with a smile because Hunk is adorable and she knows how famous her grandmother is, but she’d forgotten because she spends so much time with her.

“Don’t be jealous, _mia creatura_. I know you’ll always be my number one fan though.” Nonna winks at Pidge and Pidge gives her an exasperated look. “So. I guess that makes you that infamous asshole Lance who apparently has no respect for the basics with his lack of technique?”

“Apparently so,” Lance says, glancing down in amusement at Pidge and she blushes hotly at the awful crap she used to tell Nonna about him all the time.

“Lance, when I told her that it was when we were fighting. I don’t think that about you now. I mean, yeah you have less training but your dancing is—”

“I know that’s not how you feel anymore,” Lance responds, pausing in stretching his arm to give her a meaningful look. “You no longer have that pinched look on your face like you stepped on a cockroach when I dance with you.”

Her brows lift. “I was making faces at you too?”

“ _Yes_ ,” all three guys respond automatically.

After that, they finally decide on demonstrating some stuff from Act II, only because Keith swears they’re not pretending they’re falling for each other when they dance (she’s going to kick his skinny little ass!) and so she wants to prove him wrong.

Lance does his little solo from when he discovers the flock of bewitched swans and Pidge watches his movements and is glad to see that some of the tips she’d given him about technique have paid off because certain moves that were a shade shy of sloppy are tightened up. His style is still wild and vividly emotional, but seeing him up close, watching him dance all this time, she can’t deny that it’s really grown on her. He makes a very fantastic Siegfried. The kind people will get crushes on and be gushing about long after they see the show. And she doesn’t realise how long she’s just staring at him until he holds out his hand when Odette is supposed to come in and take it.

The sun is kind of setting behind Lance’s head and making his skin look golden and he looks like he has a ring of light around him and his eyes are imploring and all of a sudden she can’t tear her gaze away from his and Pidge’s heart stutters in her chest because _holy crap_.

She _does_ have a crush on Lance.

A huge, uncontrollable, stupid, annoying, what the fucking hell crush.

Keith nudges her with his toe to jam her out of her trance and she almost gasps and stumbles forward.

Pidge takes Lance’s hand carefully and electricity dances up her arm as he spins her closer. His arm winds around the front of her waist as they go through their duet and she tries not to shiver at the soft breaths hitting her neck when they move in tandem with each other. They’re not at show tempo because they don’t have the music, but they don’t need the counts, because somehow, they’re perfectly in time with each other. Every time they separate to do their own respective parts, every time they meet back together, every lift, every leap and jump, every time she throws herself into his arms, they’re not even a nanosecond late. It’s perfect and in the dying light of the day, it feels like she’s dancing in a fairy tale dream.

Pidge knows her face _is_ red, but it doesn’t matter to her because when she meets his gaze, she kind of melts into his arms, and for just a second, she really believes he’s her prince and she’s his princess and that nothing in the world can ever tear apart their love, not even this curse.

When they finish the last little embrace, they don’t speak for several seconds, and Lance doesn’t have that crease between his brows he sometimes gets when they rehearse, but then again, he’s kind of just staring at her like he’s seeing her for the first time.

“…still too robotic for you?” she jokes quietly, though she doesn’t realise she’s holding her breath.

“I mean, kind of, but…” His hands flex nervously where they’re resting against her back. “Your eyes are really expressive. It was kind of distracting. In a good way though.”

“Get a room!” Keith shouts and they realise they’re being watched—even by some of her neighbours—and break away so fast Pidge nearly stumbles and lands on her ass. Lance’s face is undeniably red and he glowers at Keith and Hunk who are cracking up so hard at the both of them.

“You have no real formal training in technique, correct?” Nonna says suddenly, turning their attention to her. Pidge catches the very subtle stiffening of Lance’s shoulders, but his smile doesn’t leave his face when he nods. “You left me speechless. Lance, you have a _true_ gift. Take it from an ex-professional dancer. I’ve never seen someone put so much of their soul into every move. You are without a doubt one of the most fantastic, eclectic dancers I have ever seen. You’re going places. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise.”

Pidge can’t help the proud grin that comes on her face when Lance, who never stops talking, stares at Nonna wide eyed with his jaw a little slack.

“Th-thank you…” he responds bashfully, a blush on his cheeks as he rubs the back of his neck. “That means a lot coming from you.”

“It means a lot to me that you graced me with your dancing, sweetheart. It’s lifechanging.”

It’s an emotional moment and they all look away to give Lance a little privacy because he’s looking a little misty eyed and she knows she heard him sniffle and it warms her heart. Hell, she kind of feels like crying herself. She knows how much he’s had to give up for his dreams. How much he puts into his dance despite all the difficulties and obstacles he’s had to deal with. He deserves all the praise.

All four of them end up performing some of the large group dances that they’re all part of to give Nonna a taste of the show, but thankfully decide not to do any more duets. Nonna gives them some tips here and there on presence, performance, and captivating the audience. She corrects some of their form errors and helps them to identify spots that could use a little more meat and spots that could do with more subdued oomph. Before long, two hours pass and Hunk and Lance leave because Lance needs to be on time. Lance gives her a lingering hug before he goes and even through the slight smell of sweat, she still catches the scent of his aftershave and his spicy cologne that nearly has her taking a huge whiff.

Keith leaves soon after that to go bowling with Shiro and as the day winds down, Pidge stretches out her overworked legs on the patio while Nonna watches her. The sky isn’t as bright anymore, and a slight cool wind has picked up and she knows soon she’ll have to bring her grandmother back indoors, but she wants to bask as long as she possibly can in the normalcy of this day. It’s been a long time since she enjoyed herself like this.

“Lance is a good boy. Why did you think he was a bad dancer?” Nonna asks her curiously.

“I knew he wasn’t bad.” Pidge is ashamed of herself for the way she used to be around him. She stands up and stretches high to the sky until she hears her vertebrae crack and pop and loosen up. “He just used to make me so mad. I guess maybe I was jealous. It was probably an it’s lonely at the top, kind of thing.”

“It doesn’t have to be, Caterina.”

Pidge nods and plops down on their porch couch, propping her feet up on Nonna’s lap. “I think I understand that now.”

“You do. I saw it in the way you looked when you were dancing. Your face was softer,” Nonna says, pleased, as she gently massages Pidge’s sore feet. “Oh, by the way…”

“Yes?”

“Lance is good, strong husband material. I approve.”

“ _Nonna_!”

 

…

 

There are times after practice where Pidge will commandeer a practice room in the back of the studio, far from any of their usual rehearsal rooms so she can practice until she drops.

Today is one of those days.

She pushes herself way past her limits running through dance move after dance move until her lungs are painfully constricting in her chest, and her legs are shaking from the effort of lifting herself. But it’s the only way she knows how to take her mind off of things. Plus maybe with all of this work, she might be able to come up with something to do for her final solo. It has to be perfect, not just because it’s the last dance and needs to bring the house down, but also because it’s Odette’s death scene and there are a lot of conflicting emotions encompassed in that one moment that Shiro and Allura really want her to show. She has to go above and beyond.

Keith sighs from the doorway where he’s watching her bored and irritated when she resets to start again. “Pidge, you’ve been here for two hours now. Let’s go get something to eat.”

“I’m not hungry. And I need my solo finished this week,” she responds, frustratingly wiping sweat from her eyes to get back to choreographing.

It bothers her. She’s not a terrible choreographer by any means, but she doesn’t have a knack for freestyling like she’s seen some others do. And that’s what she needs for this solo. Nothing pre-planned to perfection and picked apart until it loses its meaning. She needs some emotional, on the fly dancing to help her figure out how to work out her solo.

“I’m not going to let you pass out or starve. I’ll grab you something and come back later, okay?”

When Keith leaves, she starts new music all over again and collects herself as she closes her eyes and tries to tap into the emotions currently warring in her heart. The fear and impatience and bitterness and sadness. Surprisingly enough, it’s not hard because her grandmother pops into her head.

The other reason she’s in this studio busting her ass to try to fight her feelings.

She hates giving in to those rowdy emotions that always get her way more emotional than she wants to be, but this time she lets it. She keeps her eyes closed, envisioning her unpleasant morning as she lets her body move with the music. The way Nonna had coughed so hard her face had gone pale and she’d wheezed for breath. The way Nonna’s smile had looked so weak and barely there when Pidge’s mother had cradled her gently to help her get through the horrid pain.

Pidge shivers, a tremble of fear running through her body from the memory as she bends far back and extends an arm, reaching for something that isn’t there. She doesn’t really know what she’s doing and it’s disjointed and half the time, she stops midway through a move when something else feels _right_ with the music next, as she tries to immerse herself in the sound of the piano and the warbling of Sia in the background. Pidge wraps her arms around herself, spinning around on the balls of her feet before letting her limbs fly open. She switch leaps and when she lands, throws herself to the ground and rolls slowly, dragging her limbs. She rises slowly and takes a few steps forward reaching out to something she can’t see in the distance. When she’s midway through a pirouette, she hears a noise by the doorway.

Her eyes fly open and _Lance_ is standing by the wall pensively watching her and she hadn’t even heard him come in so she screams and flails.

And loses her balance.

And falls right on her ass with a grunt.

To his credit, he tries hard not to laugh, but it’s no good and Lance cracks up hard, clutching his stomach as raucous laughter fills the space. Pidge’s face burns red and she scrambles to her feet, bending down to mop up the small sweat puddle she left on the floor.

“It’s not that funny!” she barks at him, stomping past him to get some water.

“I’m sorry! I’ve just never seen you look so undignified,” he says in between peels of laughter.

The embarrassment creeps up even more and she wants to crawl in a hole and die. “Why are you here? You left several hours ago.”

“I left my bag in another practice room and heard music coming from down the hall so I came to check it out. Pidge, I didn’t know you could dance like that.” His expression is impressed and he looks like a spark of an idea is forming in his head.

“Stop calling me Pidge. That’s what my brother and friends call me. And _only_ them.”

Lance chucks her chin playfully. “Aww, don’t get mad. I am your friend.”

“ _My_ friends don’t laugh at me when I fall,” she huffs, slapping his hand away from her face. “And what do you mean by ‘dance like that’.”

He shrugs a bit sheepishly. “I mean that there’s actually passion in your movements. You’re not focused on just technique for once. You’re moving based on feeling. I mean, it wasn’t clean, but I thought it looked good. It was raw. A beautiful disaster, in a way.”

It sounds like a borderline insult to her and she glowers up at him. “Stop looking down on the technique. The basics are the root of all good dancing. If you don’t have a good foundation, you won’t have stability as you grow and learn.”

“But if you get so caught up on the technicalities, you won’t develop your own style. You won’t be memorable. You won’t make your mark,” he argues.

“I don’t need this lecture from you.” She’s irate and his commentary plus the fact that he saw her at anything but her best bothers her a lot.

It’s easy for him to talk about brushing aside technicalities. He dances with his heart apparently while she can only dance with her brain. She’s not one to get insecure, but since they’d started practicing for Swan Lake, she’s starting to think that she’s vastly inferior to other dancers. And she hates that she only ever feels that way at some times when she’s near Lance. He’s a great dancer and dancing with his soul isn’t something that comes difficult for him. But it’s hard for her.

Before she can get a few steps away from him though, he reaches out and grabs her wrist.

“Hey, what’s wrong,” he says seriously, all traces of humour in his voice gone.

“Nothing’s wrong.”

Lance’s eyes narrow and he tugs on her arm just hard enough to make her turn around and face him. “Except you’re angry. I don’t know if it’s because of me, but you shouldn’t keep things bottled up like that. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“I’m not mad at you. Well, not fully anyway.” Pidge stares at the long fingers holding her wrist with a sigh before looking up into Lance’s worried face. “Look, I’m in here because this is my outlet when I don’t want to go home just yet. My Nonna went the hospital for a particularly bad cough today. I refuse to go home until my mom tells me Nonna is back in the comfort of her own bed. So I was practicing in a room by myself, trying to use my emotions for my solo. And obviously failing.”

“Why do you do that?” Lance asks curiously, letting her go. “Waiting before she goes home?”

“I don’t know.” Pidge moves to wipe the bottom of her sweaty feet with the towel near her bags. “So I don’t have to come home to an empty bed I guess. It’s a haunting image. I’ve had nightmares about it.”

Lance doesn’t outright respond at first. But when he comes to stand right in front of her in her personal space, she gives him a questioning look. Lance holds his hand out to her.

“Let’s dance.”

She raises a brow and looks between his hand and face. “What?”

“One dance. Spur of the moment. No planning. Nothing we’ve already had choreographed.”

Her breath hitches. “No.”

“Why not?” Lance says indignantly.

“ _Because_.”

She doesn’t want to feel less than. But moreso than that, she’s terrified that she’ll get sucked into his orbit or something. It’s one thing to dance together as characters, but without that barrier between them, she doesn’t know how she’ll deal with the closeness and the looks on his face. Lance is a very compelling, alluring dancer and he probably doesn’t realise the effect he has on people, especially herself.

“What exactly are you scared of about dancing with me? Scared I’ll overtake you? Scared you’ll fall for me or something?” he ribs, nudging her with his elbow.

She can’t even hide the blush even if she tried to. “No way. _You’ll_ fall for me first. Besides, I’m practicing for my solo. I can’t goof off right now.”

“Jeez. You really put more pressure on yourself than anyone I have ever met.” Lance sighs and rests his hands behind his head. “Have you ever cut back and just really let loose?”

“Dancing _is_ me cutting back and letting loose, Lance.”

“ _That’s_ you letting loose? Your overly methodical—” Pidge cuts him a sharp glare and Lance cuts off with an apologetic grimace. “It just seems like you haven’t formed your style yet.”

“Ever stop to think that maybe my style is what you’re seeing? I was a trained ballerina before a contemporary dancer. There are techniques and methods I can’t just throw out just because _you_ don’t like them. Technique _matters_ to me.”

“No one’s saying you have to throw it out. But you’re not putting any of yourself in your dance either. I know there’s some semblance of personality in you because it leaks out everywhere when we talk. You’ve shown me the real you,” he taps on her chest right where her heart is beating fast, “but it doesn’t translate into your dance. I see it in your eyes, but you hold back. You need to pull it out of you. That’s the difference between a great dancer and a memorable one. You’re great, Pidge. You’ve worked hard and you deserve that praise, but I wouldn’t remember your dancing years down the line. You need to open up and be more vulnerable. Sounds cheesy, but if you give yourself to your dance, it’ll give itself to you.”

Nonna has said something similar to her multiple times as well, although in more pleasant ways. He’s harsh, but she knows what he’s saying is true, has become frighteningly more true the more she’s attempted to be Odette. She doesn’t want to fail as Odette—she _can’t_ —but she also understands deep down that things just can’t continue the way they have because it’s not enough for her to be a good dancer. She needs more and above that, she wants to add more to her dancing.

“How do I do that?” she mutters quietly, not quite looking him in the eye.

“Admitting you want help is a good first step.” Lance lifts a brow, but holds out both hands to her again. Begrudgingly, she takes them this time, and Lance’s smile is vibrant and joyous as he walks backwards to the middle of the floor, tugging her along with him. “The next song that comes on, try to freestyle it however you want. I promise I’ll keep up with whatever you do, no matter what. In turn, you have to keep up with me, whatever I do. Call and response. Push and pull. Give and take.”

“Wait, but what if we run into each other or we both try something at the same ti _mmph_ —”

A finger presses to her lips. “ _Don’t think_. Just react to me when I react to you and so on and so forth. Yeah? Just trust me.”

She swallows, a little anxious. “I do.”

Lance’s eyes light up happily. “And to think, when we met, you would have ripped my head off for daring to question your perfection.”

“Shut up,” she says without bite.

The next song that comes up is a love song that spikes up her nerves. Those are the absolute hardest to dance to. She frowns, wondering what move to do first to match the song when all of a sudden, Lance steps right up to her, crowding her, a hand stroking her cheek with a barely there touch of his fingers, his face a little too close and eyes a little too sparkly as if he’s about to—

“No thinking,” he whispers, still leaning in.

Against her training, she inhales sharply and takes a wide, sudden step back, nearly stumbling, but somehow in time with the music. Lance is obviously pleased he’d made her react that way but doesn’t miss a beat and manages to snag her wrist, tugging her forward back to him and this time she reacts quick enough to roll out from under his arm, pushing away. He doesn’t stop, every move he uses to get in her space, make her uncomfortable with his inconvenient touches and gentle smiles and sometimes her reactions are her recoiling because he has her heart beating too fast, especially when he suddenly lifts her before she can gather her bearings but she knows he’s playing around and above that, that he’s enjoying her flailing or sudden mistakes.

And then something starts to click.

And she stops running and starts _dancing_ while she runs.

They’re clashing at every turn of the second and she refuses to let go of her technique, but he refuses to let her think and slowly, she feels herself adapting to him, and she’s a little horrified when she loses her form on a move she’s long since perfected because Lance’s hand on her waist tilts her centre of balance just ever so slightly off. But it’s undeniably exhilarating to just let go.

And it stops becoming so hard to figure out how to react and the dance becomes some odd push and pull thing where he continues to pursue and she continues to run away through her crazy leap moves and flips. She lets out a small laugh, grinning as Lance playfully makes a wounded face when he tries to engulf her in his arms and she ducks out of his hold and spins away.

But he keeps up with her every step of the way. He’s always there when she finishes her move. He’s always ready.

She feeds off of him and in turn he feeds off of her as the music courses through her and she knows they probably look kind of crazy but she can’t find herself caring. And then when the song starts to reach its end, she leaps at him like a rabid squirrel, and he blinks in surprise, not expecting it, but he recovers fast and catches her around the waist. Her momentum sends them spinning and she clings to him like a koala and they both laugh at how stupidly awful it is as an ending move.

Lance comes to a stop and she sets her feet back on the ground, but he doesn’t let go of her quite yet. She glances up in his eyes inquisitively. Lance is staring at her with heat in his eyes and suddenly she can’t breathe. One hand comes up and cups her cheek and she swears he’s leaning down and her eyes flutter and breathing harshens in anticipation.

And then the music changes sharply into a new song, some nu metal with a whining guitar and a heavy bass and drum rhythm that has Lance pausing and raising a brow and Pidge blushing hard.

“This is Keith’s playlist!”

“Sure it is,” he drawls.

“Urgh.”

Pidge is annoyed the music broke the moment and pulls away from Lance to go shut off the loud noise. She’s pretty sure they have an unspoken agreement that they’ve done enough for the day. He follows her quietly, hands wedged in the pockets of his sweatpants and a telltale blush on his cheeks.

“You know,” he says after she’s unplugged her iPod. “That’s probably how Allura wants us to dance as the prince and princess.”

Pidge nods as she shuts down the stereo equipment. “That was pretty fun. I’d like to try again sometime.”

Lance’s answering smile is gorgeous. “Yeah? You ever interested in Latin dance?”

“I’ve done a little before. It was part of a bunch of training camps I went through until high school. But not recently.”

“You should come dancing with me one day.” Lance says nonchalantly, but he’s twiddling his thumbs a bit and she gets the distinct impression that he’s nervous for some reason. “I get free nights at the bar I work at with a plus one. If you’re ever interested, it might be something fun to try out because it helps a lot with spontaneity.”

Pidge nods, giving Lance a smile. “It probably will be fun with you. I’ll think about it.”

“Great. So same time here tomorrow?”

“Okay. Yeah. I’d like that.”

 

…

 

It ends up becoming a habit for them.

Their usual rehearsal, their one on one time practicing Allura and Shiro’s choreography, and then hitting up one of the private rooms for practice well into the night until he has to go to work and she leaves to go spend time with her grandmother before she goes to bed. Sometimes Keith sticks around in a different room to practice and will come to watch them do their weird improvisation thing for a bit on his short breaks. Sometimes Hunk is there or he leaves and returns with burgers and fries from a joint open late nearby them. Shiro would murder them in their sleep if he found out they put that greasy food in their bodies so close to the showdate when they're all on a strict nutrition regiment, but she can’t find it in her to care.

Pidge still is having a bit of trouble tapping deep into her emotions to be able to come up with material for her finale solo, but with all the extra practice time she’s been putting in with Lance, she kind of feels like she’s gotten better.

She can’t lie that for the first time, she kind of feels like an average teenager, hanging out with friends, goofing off and laughing, regardless of all the heavy feelings that weigh at the back of her mind.

It’s fun.

Where Lance’s wild style used to grate her nerves and give her hives, she now finds herself smiling when she sees him change up yet another choreographed move on a whim just because it feels right. She loves watching the way the muscles in his arms and legs and back work with the power and energy he puts behind all of his moves. She can definitely see how much he loves to dance, and it’s extremely admirable, although she doesn’t dare show it on her face. The last thing she wants is to seem like she’s one of those annoying giggling girls who have these outrageous crushes on Lance.

(Even though deep down, she totally is).

And it definitely makes her a bit smug that she has a leg up on them because she has an Allura-mandated private practice every rehearsal where she can stare at him and watch him dance to her heart’s content.

“So, hey I was thinking… What do you think about changing the next move to a renversé coming out of your pirouette instead of a calypso?” Lance asks her while using his tank top to mop up some sweat on his face. Pidge quickly looks away so that he doesn’t notice that she’d been staring at the stretch of tight muscles in his abdomen. “If we time it right, I can catch you before you land and lead straight into the spin. I just want to see what it will look like since you’ll be higher off the ground. Maybe Shiro might like it.”

Pidge nods, running a hand through her hair. “Oh yeah, okay, sounds good.”

Lance gives her a questioning look, but doesn’t say anything and they start from the point at which she enters back into their final dance. She’s a bit distracted though, and her pirouette ends up faster than she intends. She comes out of it a bit off too and in the wrong direction so she tries to recover by making a wider arch when she jumps. She forgets to check to see where Lance is so she can figure out where to aim for though and so doesn’t realise he’d adjusted his position so she doesn’t have to work too hard to meet him.

“ _Pidge_!” Lance shouts while she’s jumping up and she snaps her head in his direction and realises she’d miscalculated the distance completely because he’s _right there_ and she’s about to kick him straight in the face.

She aborts the kick out midway through, but still can’t slow herself down and stumbles forward once she hits the ground. Lance holds his arms out to help her stop so she runs right into him and before she knows it, neither of them have any balance and crash to the floor in a tangle of limbs. For a shocked moment, Pidge stares down at Lance, ignoring the slight pain from landing a bit on her knee. He’s wincing too, but he reaches up and cups her cheek in concern.

“Shit, Pidge, are you okay?”

There’s just something so ridiculous and unbelievable about this and Lance’s expression is some mix of pain and worry and incredulity that isn’t meshing right.

So she cracks up hard, and she can’t stop and starts gasping and snorting too and she knows she probably looks crazy, but she can’t help it. Lance doesn’t say anything while she still continues laughing. He just pulls her to her feet and waits quietly until she finally calms down, wiping her own eyes and still chuckling a bit as it tapers off. She expects some snarky comment or a joke from him or even a shocked look at how ridiculous she’s being, but when she glances up at him her breath catches.

He’s giving her a tender look, eyes dark, and a soft smile playing on his lips. Like… if this is his final moment on earth, he can go happily because he gets to see her.

 _Lovestruck,_ she thinks.

Her face flushes immediately. “Wh-what?”

She tries to pull away, but Lance won’t let her go and it speeds up her pulse because he’s much closer than before and the hand on her waist is on her back now and he’s not letting her run away from this moment.

“I’ve never seen you laugh like that before,” he says softly. “You’re beautiful.”

She can’t speak and blinks wide eyed at him. Lance tucks a strand of hair behind her ear but doesn’t remove his hand from her face.

“It’s like… you give me these inklings of the real Katie behind all of that sass and haughty, guarded behaviour. I wish you’d let me see more of her.”

And she knows he’s really asking her to open up to him. To fully let him in. It’s a tall order, but she wants to.

“M-maybe I will… one day.”

And she’s mesmerised by the blue in his eyes and she can’t really explain what compels her to stretch to her toes when he leans down but she does and they meet halfway and his mouth slots warmly over hers. She sighs into the kiss, grasping his shoulders as his hand splays over her back to draw her even closer. Her heart pounds in her chest, but she can’t help it.

Because this feels so right.

It’s only by sheer stroke of luck that their current practice room has a door that squeaks on its hinges, so they hear when the door begins to open and break apart before the intruder can see. It’s one of the Swan Lake dancers, coming to inform them that Allura wants them back in the main practice room.

They walk in astonished silence and they’re still blushing furiously even when they arrive back with the rest of the group. She ignores the weird looks people give them and barely registers Allura telling them she wants to see where they are with their first dance in Act II.

Pidge feels like she’s having some out of body experience. She can’t really describe the way she feels as she dances with Lance, kind of shy and blushing every time she meets his warm gaze. He’s a strong and sturdy presence, and even though she always feels a rush when she dances, there’s just something about today that sets her pulse permanently alight. Slowly, the rest of the world melts away until it’s only her and Lance wrapped up in each other, lost in their dance. She feels right in his arms, feels light on her feet and dizzy in all the best ways as he spins her when he lifts her, the moves of their dance flowing perfectly between them as if they’re just an extension of each other.

They finish their dance with the soft embrace, and she wonders if he can feel her rapid heartbeat in her chest. The applause in the background slowly catches up to her, and reluctantly, she steps back from Lance though they don’t fully break away from each other. His eyes dance with laughter and affection and Pidge can’t help the goofy smile on her face.

Allura and Shiro are just over the moon in happiness, and Allura even looks a little emotional. But Pidge knows no one in the room’s shock can bypass her own.

“That was so, so beautiful. You guys look fantastic together,” Shiro exclaims, clasping a hand on both of their shoulders. “What changed?”

Keith nudges Hunk, and the both of them start smirking. “I have a few ideas.”

Pidge threatens him with her glare, but she loves that Lance subtly takes her hand in his where none of the others can see them, and even more happy that their fingers weave together without thought.

 

…

 

Something in their relationship shifts very sharply after that.

And in the best way possible.

It becomes increasingly more difficult to separate her dance from her personal feelings towards Lance. She resonates deeply with the feelings Odette has for Siegfried and it’s increasingly more difficult for Pidge to hide the fact that she has feelings for Lance. She swears Lance knows because every time she stutters around him or tries to get out of touching him somehow, he gets this knowing look in his eyes.

She doesn’t want to jump to conclusions, but she feels like he likes her too. It’s the little things like the way he casually holds her hand and the way he goes out of his way to talk to her, even in the middle of his conversations some times. And he kisses her cheeks and hugs her when she does well or at the end of their practices. And he laughs at all her lame comments and jokes, no matter how stupid. And she’s not usually the kind of person to be on the receiving end of a crush so she doesn’t know if she’s misreading signs, and they still haven’t really talked about The Kiss™ so she’s still not sure what it meant on his end, but it’s a feeling she gets.

Like now, when Hunk is giving her a ride home with them and Lance keeps poking her cheek and trying to tickle her and won’t stop touching her. (Not that she minds). Not to mention the fact that even if all three of them cram into the seat, there’ll still be just enough room, yet he still pulls her onto his lap and refuses to move his arm from its place around her waist.

She spends the whole ride flustered and avoiding Hunk’s waggling eyebrows at her.

Hunk comes to a stop in front of her house, and before she can even start to leave, Lance declares that he’ll walk her to her door. They’re quiet the few steps it takes her to get to her door, but just when Pidge is about to think of some way to break it with random talk, he clears his throat.

“Hey so, my work place is having a couple's bachata night tomorrow night.” He scratches the back of his head and smiles hopefully at her. “And it’s only the background swans practicing at Altea tomorrow and I don’t have to bartend and I don’t know if you have plans or anything, but we talked about it once and I don’t know if you’re still interested, but do you want to go with me? Go out dancing?”

Pidge gives him a coy smile. “Are you asking me out on a date?”

“…I’m not, _not_ asking you out. I mean, you don’t have to go if you don’t want to but I thought you might like to especially since you’re working on expressing emotions and—”

“Sure.”

Lance blinks in shock for a second. “Sure as in you want to go, sure?”

“Sure as in I’ll go on a date with you, Lance.” She cracks a grin that he returns.

“Then, I’ll pick you up at ten?”

She nods, feeling like her heart is going to burst out of her chest. He starts to leave, then thinks better of it, pauses, and then walks back over to her and presses a chaste kiss on her lips. Before Pidge can respond, Lance is already briskly walking back to Hunk’s car and she’s left standing there touching her lips.

She waits until they leave before she walks into her home and even then it’s not until after she greets her mom and climbs up to the second floor that she starts jumping up and down and squeeing to herself and covering her blushing face with both hands. It’s not the first date she’s ever had, but it’s the first one that has mattered so much to her.

Pidge goes to Nonna’s room to tell her about what had happened, but her grandmother’s raspy coughs stay her giddiness and make her stomach drop to her feet. Nonna is breathing slowly, her face looking pained. She’s clearly not feeling alright, and Pidge can’t think about an upcoming date when she’s like this.

“Caterina, don’t stand in the doorway. Come in,” she says quietly, turning her head and giving Pidge a weak smile.

Pidge swallows hard but walks in and comes to her grandmother’s bedside. “Nonna… are you in pain?”

“Yes, but it’s ignorable. Especially if I get to see you.” She reaches out blindly and Pidge squeezes her hand in hers. “Now tell me the juicy gossip. Why were you squealing in the hallway?”

“It’s not important. Besides you need to rest and—”

“Everything pertaining to you is important, _cucciola_. I don’t want to miss a single second of your life right now.”

Pidge smiles a bit, though she knows the back of her eyes are stinging. “Lance asked me out on a date tomorrow.”

“Congratulations,” Nonna chortles. “And to think you used to come in here fuming about how much of a stubborn idiot he apparently was.”

“Yeah, we’ve come a long way. But he’s still really stubborn. He does whatever the hell he wants and he still bugs me because we’re such opposites and he still thinks I’m robotic.”

She doesn’t realise how fondly she’s talking about him until she glances down at her grandmother only to see the old woman looking at Pidge with a raised brow.

“You need someone who can keep you on your toes in all aspects of your life, Caterina. Someone who can match your vigour toe to toe and twist your life upside down in all the best ways. He sounds perfect for you.”

“I think… I think he is,” Pidge admits quietly.

And it’s crazy to her how much she used to not be able to stand him, but the more she thinks about it, the more she wonders if she’d ever truly hated him to begin with.

She’s drawn sharply out of her thoughts when Nonna erupts in a fit of coughs though. Pidge focuses her attention on her, helping to soothe her and making sure she gets some water in her once she gets it out of her system. When Nonna settles down, Pidge helps her get comfortable for bed. Too much excitement can’t be good for her body, so Pidge sits and strokes her head until her grandmother falls into a somewhat comfortable sleep.

Pidge feels guilty about going out when she should be spending more time with Nonna. She’s terribly worried. It’s like the closer they get to the day of the show, the more Pidge’s nerves ratchet up. She knows time is running out, and maybe she’s focusing on the wrong things.

Her nonna would be okay though.

She’d made it this long. She would make it to the performance day.

She _had to_.

 

…

 

Her mother figures out immediately that she’s going on a date when the next night she dresses in a cute cropped halter top and some low rise jeans that really show off her hips and awesome legs. And after that, her mother spends the whole time teasing her. When Lance arrives, her mom starts joking around that she’ll invite him in and embarrass her and Pidge is mortified so she hurries to say bye to her grandmother and leave before her mom can talk to Lance.

“Enjoy yourself, Caterina. You’re only nineteen once,” Nonna reminds her.

So Pidge grabs her coat and leaves the house. Lance greets her with a kiss that deepens and they end up making out a bit in front of her door before she realises her mom is probably standing there watching and she pulls away.

(Though she really doesn’t want to. The rumours hadn’t lied. Lance is an _amazing_ kisser and he really knows how to use his tongue).

He compliments her outfit and hair—ever the gentleman—and after some playful banter, they head off to the dance club. Hunk had let Lance borrow his truck for the evening and they spend most of the ride flipping radio channels and trying to find something they both like. They end up settling on country music—which they both _don’t_ like—and make fun of the corny lines some of the songs have. By the end of the ride though, they’ve developed a begrudging respect for the poetry behind some of the nicer songs.

It’s crowded as hell when they arrive, most patrons already on the dance floor caught in the throes of the music. Some women make eyes at Lance, and she doesn’t blame them when he smells so delicious and his eyes look like sin and the button down he’s wearing shows off the lithe muscles of his build. It’s loud in there and hot and reeks of sweating bodies and spilled vodka and tequila cocktails and she’s a little grossed out, but Lance pulls her out to the dance floor before she can make any comments.

Their first couple of songs she spends trying to remember the basic footwork of bachata and the cues for turns and where she should put her hands. He’s patient with her, giving her gentle instruction and watching her movements to make sure she’s getting it right. She feels a little awkward, but thankfully, she’s always been a quick learner though. They decide to give it a try for real the next song that comes on.

The third song is relatively upbeat but he takes it a little slow, giving her time between moves to collect and restabilise herself. He holds mostly onto her hands solely to let her delve into the beats and get used to the moves with the music. It’s easy dancing this way with Lance too, and fun, and she slowly gets more loose and confident as she feels the flow of the music while running through various steps. Lance is energetic and his smile is contagious and before she knows it, she’s picking up steps more readily and understanding what he wants her to do with each subtle look and the way he guides her through turns and more complicated spins.

The fourth song though, is slower, significantly more sensual, and she can feel the shift in the vibe of the club when Lance takes her wrists and brings her arms up around his neck. His hands slide down her arms and trail down her sides and Pidge can’t help the shiver when he drags her closer, so close the length of their bodies are pressed against each other. She stiffens and is tempted to push away, but his hold on her tightens and suddenly everything is scorching hot.

“Let me lead, Katie,” he murmurs all low, pressing his forehead to hers. “Just give in for once.”

And a chill runs down her back from his tone. Gone is the lighthearted dancing and she snaps her eyes up at him only to see the challenge in his eyes. They’re darker somehow and there’s something wild and heated in his gaze and part of her feels like she’s seeing a side of Lance she’s never really seen before. This Lance with desire in his eyes and a wicked smirk pulling up his lips and she’s helpless to his persuasion.

“Okay,” she whispers back.

They don’t ever return to the goofy fun dancing from earlier in the night.

She’s not sure how long they dance together, how long she spends in his arms being guided through compact spins and turns, pulled back into his chest with absolutely no space between them, rocking together but she can’t deny how intoxicating it is. How breathless she is the more the night wears on. How Lance’s dancing eyes pull her deeper and deeper in a trance. How _free_ she feels letting go, giving in, moving on a whim based solely on his commands.

Fire burns through her body everywhere she feels his hands trailing on her skin, and she just wants him to _touch_ her, to kiss her properly, but each time she finds her lips brushing his, he pulls away with a naughty little smirk. He’s toying with her and she _hates_ it, but something in her coils tight with need and her body thrums with the energy of the music and the heat from Lance’s body.

It’s like being drunk without having taken a single shot.

And she can’t get enough.

When the night wears down, they go back to his place. Hunk is out camping that night with some friends from a program at his school, and Pidge doesn’t know if that’s a contributing factor for her or the fact that there’s still electricity crackling under her skin or that she can see the same hunger and _want_ in Lance’s eyes.

But it’s because she’s still riding the high of their intense emotional connection that she kisses him with intent, that she doesn’t object to his gentle hands on her skin under her shirt, that she sighs into the trail of hot kisses he leaves on her neck, that she lets him lead her to his bedroom, that she doesn’t fight it when he slides her jeans off her legs, that she assures him that she’s ready, that she wants this.

It’s new for her, jumping into things like this, but she feels safe and comfortable with Lance. She knows he would never hurt her.

“I’ve got you. Don’t hold back,” he whispers against her lips. “Just let go, Katie.”

And she does.

 

…

 

When her mother had first given her _the talk_ years ago, Pidge remembers her talking about preparing herself for possible awkwardness or just all around a horrible night the first time, but when she wakes up the morning after, hand clasped tightly in Lance’s and wrapped up in his arms, she absolutely feels the best she has in a long time if not for the soreness between her legs.

It had been a magical night.

Lance is the perfect gentleman and attentive and makes sure she’s comfortable and gets her a heat pack for her abdomen. He makes them breakfast and they make plans to hang out until practice and see if they can defeat the final villain in Killbot Phantasm. Pidge’s heart swells because as crazy as it is that she had sex with him after their first date, it feels right.

Everything is perfect.

And maybe someone else might think she’s being ridiculous, but as she watches Lance talk enthusiastically about graduating from college in the spring and how he’s thinking of becoming a full time dance teacher at Altea like Allura did ten years ago, she knows she’s going to fall in love with him. Sooner or later it will happen and it kind of scares her, but she’s trying not to see vulnerability as a weakness and maybe, just maybe, falling hard and fast isn’t such a bad thing. She knows she trusts him enough to lose her virginity to him, and she knows he would never hurt her.

While Lance clears the dishes and heads to the kitchen to wash them, Pidge’s mother calls her. It’s not like she keeps track of Pidge’s late nights, especially since she tends to stay at the studio late, but Pidge realises she hadn’t told her that she’d stayed at Lance’s last night.

“Mom? I’m kind of doing something. But sorry about not texting you last night.”

 _“Something? Or **someone**? I hope you used protection…”_ she responds dryly.

“Mom!” she hisses, face burning red.

_“I know you’re still on your date, and I’ll be out of your hair soon. Allura sent out emails for seat and dinner reservations for the dancer’s families. Matt and your father are flying up to come to the performance. So I’m reserving three seats but I wanted to make sure you were okay with that first, just in case you have other friends you want to invite.”_

“Reserve one more,” Pidge answers absentmindedly, watching Lance as he nearly drops a slippery dish.

_“…May I ask who this ticket is for?”_

Pidge frowns. “Nonna is coming to the performance too.”

 _“Katie,”_ her mother says and ice travels through her veins, _“that likely won’t be the case.”_

“Yes it—”

 _“Honey, at our last visit to the hospital, Dr. Walden said your grandmother probably won’t make it past one or two more weeks.”_ Her tone is so decisive, so broken and pained, that Pidge’s heart gets lodged somewhere in her throat. _“It’s time, honey.”_

And just like that, Pidge’s mood plummets and she can’t help but feel like this is all wrong. She shouldn’t be here with Lance getting pampered when her grandmother has limited time. She never should have gone on this date and she never should have spent the night. It’s not regret that she’s feeling though.

It’s guilt.

She needs to go see her grandmother. She needs to go assure herself that Nonna will hold out for about a month and a half more. They’re so close. They’re so _so_ close.

“Mom, Dr. Walden has been wrong before. And he’s probably wrong now. Reserve four seats. I’ll call you back later.”

_“Katie, please just—”_

She hangs up before her mother can say anything else, and when Lance returns, that ache of guilt returns in her chest. There are priorities in her life, and she’s neglected them too long. Before he can even cue up the game, she’s grabbing her coat and making dumb excuses that she has to go despite his protests. She ignores the hurt look of confusion on his face in favour of hightailing it out of the door.

And that’s that.

Whatever strides they’d taken in the past several weeks, she pushes them to the side, holding Lance at arm’s length, but especially pretending that date never happened. But most importantly, she avoids Lance. He gives her space, she assumes, because he probably thinks she needs time to think about things, but Keith is concerned with her sudden standoffish distance towards everyone.

It doesn’t matter.

No matter how much it hurts her to slow things down, it doesn’t matter.

Only her grandmother does.

 

…

 

For all her attempts to avoid certain conversation, her mother corners her while she’s rushing on her way to get to a coding class on time and tells her that they’ve finalised the will, in essence, forcing Pidge to start preparing for the loss of Nonna.

“You can’t stop time, Katie,” she’d said with that same look of pity on her face. “It’s time for you to prepare to adapt to a new life without your grandmother.”

Pidge is furious for the rest of the day, and Shiro notices her attitude that evening and grants her a one day only respite from rehearsing with the group to practice on her own. She spends her evening in solitude—and thankfully no one comes to check up on her—working her frustrations out through trying to finish up her solo because it hurts so bad to admit that her mother is right. Something in her grandmother dims each day that passes, her breathing gets more laboured, her grip weaker, sleeping more, and it’s dreadful to see. Pidge _doesn’t_ want to see it.

She doesn’t want to lose her biggest supporter. Her idol and role model. Her best friend. The reason why she’d started dancing in the first place.

But apparently, she’s not the only one who’s frustrated because _Lance_ stops by right when she’s finally decided she doesn’t want to dance right now and to skip the rest of practice to go back home to talk to Nonna. And Pidge growls in exasperation because she really can’t deal with home stuff _and_ Lance stuff right now and she really just needs time to go think and try to get her mind in order.

“Can we talk?” Lance asks softly, licking his lips nervously as he walks fully into the room. “You’ve been avoiding me and I can’t help but feel like I did something horribly wrong.”

Pidge snatches up her iPod and drops it in her bag. “There’s nothing _to_ talk about, Lance. Whatever was going on between us, I don’t have time for it anymore. It was a fluke. It was completely unprofessional. It never should have happened and it’s awkward that we’ve seen so much of each other, so I’m avoiding you now.”

Lance’s expression is many things, but the main one is shock, and then he’s glowering at her like he can’t figure her out anymore.

“Why are you acting like this again?”

Pidge swallows hard and looks away. “Like what?”

“Closed off and _mean_ ,” he presses. “I know you’re just putting on an act so what’s your deal?”

“Maybe this is just the way I am. Get over it. Besides, I already told you I’m avoiding you because we slept together.”

“This isn’t about us having sex,” Lance hisses, his eyes flaring in anger. Pidge tries to keep from flinching. She can see the sledgehammer she’s taken to their relationship, but she doesn’t care. She can’t focus on him right now, and if this is the only way to get him to back off, so be it. “This is about your fears of emotional intimacy. You’re so fucking scared of letting control go, of letting things just progress the way they have between us. You can’t force time to stop just so you can keep some semblance of the life you want to control, Pidge. Life doesn’t work that way and you need to adapt to the changes in order to grow and become a stronger person!”

And once again, his words hit _way_ too close to home, especially because her mother had said the same thing that morning. Something in her snaps, raging hot and livid.

“ _Shut up_! Just shut up!” Pidge screams, fed up with people trying to force her to accept the changes she doesn’t want to deal with. “You know nothing about me, _nothing_ , so stop acting like just because we slept together that means all of a sudden you have access to every corner of my mind!”

“I thought we were done with all this closed off bullshit! You know this isn’t you, Pidge. Seriously, what’s your deal?”

Pidge levels him with an absolutely nasty sneer, ignoring her shattering heart and deciding that whatever is between them needs to end now. “Why don’t you just piss off and go back to hooking up with the first girls that throw themselves at your feet? You’ve got plenty of willing options so stop bothering me. I’m another notch in your belt now so you don’t have to humour me anymore.”

“Wow. You really think that little of me, huh?” Lance scoffs, the pain from her words finally reaching his eyes, and she knows her farce is actually starting to get to him. “You think I put all this time in hanging out with you, helping you put emotion in your dance all because I wanted to get in your pants? That’s it?”

“Well you did get in my pants, didn’t you? You called me a bitch when we met. So what compelled you to even decide to be with me if not for that reason? I mean let’s consider your track record.”

It’s not true. She _knows_ it’s not true. But it has the desired effect when Lance takes a step back, recoiling as if she’s punched him in the face.

“Where in the fuck is this coming from?! And is it really such a crime that I wanted to sleep with you? You’re a beautiful girl and you’re fun and cool and we connected emotionally that night in a way I never have with anyone else. I like you. A lot. And call me crazy, but I feel like you’re someone I can fall in love with.” The back of her eyes prickle with tears she refuses to shed and Pidge looks at the ground, clenching her hands tight in a fist until her fingernails bite into her skin. “We were both on the same page that night! I know what I saw in your eyes in the morning. But then all of a sudden, you’re rushing to leave and next thing I know, you go back to this shit.”

“I have my priorities, Lance. And you? You’re a distraction I don’t need in my life. I’m better off alone. So seriously. Piss off,” she chokes out, keeping her gaze steady on his as she says the words she knows will absolutely be the final nail in the coffin.

Lance’s eyes go almost immediately blank, as if he’s decided he no longer wants to give her power to hurt him. As if he’s done with her. But even so, she can still see the anger and pain simmering in those beautiful blues.

“I thought maybe I was wrong about you. But you really proved everyone right.” He lets out one long, shaky exhale, running a hand through his hair with a humourless smile that comes out more like a grimace. When he shifts his gaze back to her, Pidge has to look away because she’s scared what she sees in there will make her cry. “Congratu-fucking-lations, Katie Holt. You and your cold heart _are_ better off alone.”

She says nothing else as Lance storms out of the room, just watching his retreating back and taking deep slow breaths to cool her head and keep from getting emotional and crying.

Everything is spiralling, becoming a fantastic mess, and she just wants to curl in a ball by herself in the corner and cry, but while dancing in solitude used to work when she gets upset, now it makes her feel empty and lonely and scared and lost.

And the only other person who can succeed in calming her down won’t even make it to the end of the year.

 

…

 

To Lance and her credit, despite their horrible something like a breakup, they are civil enough around each other and aren’t trying to bite each other’s heads off. It’s just cold looks of disinterest between them that leaves everyone confused because they’d been undeniably close up until recently. But their chemistry while dancing is completely and totally shot.

They’re at square one—not even one, but _zero_ —and nothing works. He’s not trying so she doesn’t try. She doesn’t look at him so he doesn’t look at her.

“What the hell is going on with you two?!” Allura barks furiously, completely and totally fed up. Even Shiro—Mr. Patience Yields Focus—is crossing his arms impatiently as he watches them mess up for the who knows which number time. “We’ve got a month before the show and you should not still be having trouble with these duets! You’ve done it right before and it’s been great, so what the fuck is this unacceptable shit you’re showing me now?! Again from the top! And get it right!”

They don’t.

And Shiro has to send a fuming Allura out for a breather during a five minute break because the Warrior Princess of Altea may be a warmhearted person, but when it comes to her shows, she gets extremely aggressive and stressed out and Pidge is sure she’s close to bursting a blood vessel. Or throwing a stereo through a window.

“Pidge, what the fuck is going on?” Keith demands to know. “You barely respond to messages, your dancing is so dispassionate today, and above all that, what happened to you and Lance?”

“It’s not important,” Pidge mutters, her eyes flicking over to where Lance is chatting with a couple of the flirtatious swans. His usual easygoing smile is off. There’s something not right about his vibe either and she hates that she did this to him. She wishes she can take it back, but she’d meant what she said about him being a distraction. She needs to focus only on her grandmother. “I’m just worried about Nonna.”

Keith’s sharp gaze softens and he backs off. “Pidge. If you need to talk about it, you know we’re all here to listen to you. Just don’t bottle stuff in.”

“I appreciate it, but there’s nothing anyone can say to change my situation,” she responds stiffly.

Keith looks geared up to argue, but Allura bursts back through the studio doors, still irate but less so than before. Her eyes zoom around the room of nervous individuals until she zones in on Pidge and points a finger at her.

“ _You_. You’re better than this. But right now I’m being filled with all these doubts and I need some convincing that you know what you’re doing. So show me your finale solo. _Now_.”

Pidge swallows hard because she’s choreographed only about half of the moves she needs, but she hopes it’s enough to appease Allura because the woman really does look at her wit’s end.

Pidge refuses to acknowledge the fact that she’s shaking, that she’s not steady in her motions. For the first time in several years, she feels the pressure of having to be perfect, the weight of everyone’s gazes on her. A subtle fear clogs her pores and infects her mind and her moves come out with less conviction than they should. She’s off by a partial count in the music, but she can’t get her breathing right and she’s not getting the right height for her leaps and for some reason her usual cool confidence feels like it’s been shattered. And then she trips up on a fouetté that shouldn’t give her trouble at all and feels the pain in her knee from the awkward motion and she knows it’s over.

It’s funny.

She can almost pinpoint her exact mistake before it even happens, but her second leg comes up late in her turning disc jump and she tucks her leg wrong coming out of it, and next thing she knows, she’s rolling along the ground like a wheelbarrow, her limbs banging painfully along the floor.

There are shocked and horrified gasps from all around the room. Pidge hears people calling her name as she pulls herself up to her knees, but the only thing she can hear is the ringing in her ears as she stares at the strands of her hair trailing the ground. Her breathing is uneven and ragged and she can’t seem to catch her breath.

Is this what a panic attack feels like?

“Pidge!” Allura says in concern, jogging over to her and crouching to make sure she’s okay. “Did you hurt yourself?”

“No,” she says shakily, biting down hard on the side of her cheek to keep from crying. She will not cry. She _will not_ cry, dammit! “I’m fine.”

But when she tries to rise to her feet, her left ankle twinges horribly and acute, sharp pain travels up her leg. She cries out and lands back on the ground when the slow throbbing very quickly becomes an intense pounding.

“Keith! Help her get to the infirmary! Stop moving, Pidge.”

“No!” Pidge shouts, trying to get herself to her feet and pushing past the horrible pain in her trembling leg. “I can still dance!”

Allura’s eyes widen angrily. “I said _no_. No more dancing for the day! Listen to me!”

Pidge drags herself back to the centre, trying to get back into her starting position. “But if you just let me—”

“ _Katie Holt_!” Shiro booms, his voice rattling the mirrors. Everyone whispering hushes immediately, frightened by his rare show of true anger. “You’re done.”

And it’s those final words that have her crumpling to the ground in disbelief. She’s failed. Miserably so. Pidge keeps her gaze staunchly on the ground when Keith oh so gently helps her up and pulls her arm onto his shoulders like a crutch.

“Uh oh,” one of her bullies says, just the right amount of snark in her tone to sound like an insult rather than genuine concern. “Looks like Ina’s going to end up being our Odette anyway since Katie is clearly injured.”

“Really sucks, huh?”

And for a brief second, Pidge feels helpless, like she doesn’t want to fight anymore. Like she just wants to give up. Keith stiffens beside her and Allura frowns as she turns to the girls, but before anyone can say anything, Lance’s voice suddenly fills the rehearsal room.

“Do you ever stop to think that Pi— Katie has feelings too? That those kinds of words actually hurt her?! She worked hard for that position and it’s deserved. So stop talking about her like that and get over yourselves! Show some fucking empathy. One of your fellow dancers just got hurt and the only thing that crosses your mind is tearing down someone who’s not in a good place right now? What kind of ugly people are you to think that’s okay?!”

Another awkward silence fills the room, this time because Lance has never said anything to anyone like that before.

“Lance… we’re sorry,” she responds, flushing in embarrassment. “We were just—”

“I’m not the one you should be apologising to.” And he glances over at Pidge, and though she knows he’s still mad, his concern is touching.

“That can wait until later,” Allura says, shooing at Keith to leave the room. “Get her to the infirmary. You girls? See me in my office after practice.”

By the time Pidge has gotten her ankle wrapped up and has her ice pack firmly pressed to the painful swollen area, it’s stopped throbbing. Their personal nurse declares it a light sprain, telling Pidge she needs to try to keep heavy weight off of it, follow RICE, and to avoid dancing on it for a couple days.

It puts Pidge into a thoroughly distraught mood, but she still refuses to let any tears shed no matter how much she feels it building in her head. It’s just a minor setback, she tells herself. Just one more problem on her growing list.

Shiro stops by as she’s gathering her items from her locker. “I’m taking you to dinner, Pidge.”

“I thought Tuesday nights were your flexibility training nights for adult beginners?”

“Allura said she’d cover for me tonight. Besides, you’re a wreck. And we need to talk.”

She doesn’t even try to fight it, just sighs heavily and lets him grab her school bags as they make their way to his car. She’s glad she’s had these people in her life for so long, but an obvious downside is the fact that they’re way too observant.

It’s an uneasy silent car ride for most of the trip until Shiro finally cuts off the radio.

“Pidge, I’m not going to force you to talk if you don’t want to, but you have never in the ten years I’ve known you lost focus the way I saw you lose it today. Even when your father and brother left for DC years back, you didn’t let it distract you. So how bad was your fight with Lance?”

She doesn’t even question how Shiro possibly figured that out, but by this point, she’s not surprised that people probably know about her relationship with Lance considering how many comments and jokes Keith and Hunk had kept making. Plus, there’s the obvious huge rift between them now.

“I slept with him.”

The car swerves briefly from his shock at her admission, and it would be funny except there’s still a bit of frost on the ground from the last short bout of snow and she’s terrified he’ll hit a patch of ice or something.

Shiro blanches. “What?”

“Lance and I had sex,” she repeats bluntly when he seems to have gotten a grip. He grimaces uncomfortably just the slightest bit. “He was perfect to me. And I messed it all up afterwards.”

And she goes on a long rant, explaining everything to him, how close they got fast, her fears and difficulties. The way she’d insulted Lance, driven him purposely away. Her fears about her grandmother and how the timing is all wrong and she can’t focus on him right now when it’s the final countdown. Shiro listens patiently, brows furrowed as he takes in all the information she unloads on him.

“And now we can’t even dance together anymore because I destroyed his heart.” Pidge feels her throat tighten but clears her throat multiple times to get rid of it. She hasn’t cried throughout this whole stupid ordeal. And she’s not going to start now. “I can’t even dance. I might as well just give up.”

“Do you like Lance?” Shiro asks.

“I do. I really like him. Maybe even love him.”

“Then tell him what you told me. Tell him about your fears. Tell him you need him to be patient with you.” Pidge wrinkles her nose at the suggestion, but Shiro puts his hand on her shoulder and gently squeezes. The cool metal of the prosthesis chills her skin. “Pidge, be open and honest with him. The way you’re open and honest with us. Lance is a good guy. If you say he likes you a lot too, then he’ll understand.”

“I’m just scared and everything is a mess and I don’t know how to fix it without making things worse. I don’t know why I get so scared or why I screw everything up but I did and here I am and I don’t know how to make things right.”

Shiro gives her a quick small smile. “You’re stressed out from your family situation. No one can fault you for having some emotional reactions you yourself don’t even understand.”

Her phone rings and Pidge picks it up because it’s her mom, and she realises she’d forgotten to text her mother that she was getting a quick dinner with Shiro.

“Hey Mom, I’m grabbing dinner with Shiro, so don’t worry about…”

She’s so ready to dive into her spiel that she almost misses her mother’s soft sniffles.

 _Almost_.

And her heart stops beating.

“…Mom?”

 

…

 

Pidge stares down blankly at the forest green casket being slowly covered with soil, registering none of the words the priest utters as the ceremony begins to come to a close.

Beside her, Matt squeezes her hand tight, as if trying to transfer all of his strength to her. On her other side, her mother is wailing into her father’s chest, her anguished cries drowning out any thoughts that try to enter Pidge’s mind.

There’s a part of Pidge that doesn’t even think this whole thing is real. For so many weeks and months, this very moment has been creeping up on her, hinted at, with plenty of false alarms, but now that it’s happened, it feels too surreal. Too unbelievable.

She half expects Nonna to kick open the casket and say she’s joking.

But nothing happens.

“May her soul and the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace,” the priest finishes, closing his Bible, and gives them all a soft, apologetic look before he leaves on his way.

And just like that, the ceremony is over and they have to say goodbye.

People who are not immediate relation to Nonna begin to leave, making sure to offer their condolences in the form of gentle hugs or shoulder pats. It’s a private burial of only immediate family and close friends of the family as her grandmother wanted, but she knows around the world, people are honouring the loss of the legendary prima ballerina Ginevra Ricci. Articles have been published on the trajectory of her life, her training from a young age in an Italian orphanage, moving to America and meeting her future husband who’d discovered her and gotten her into a company, becoming a prima, all of her numerous accolades and shows, her retirement to focus on her family. She hadn’t been a longterm prima ballerina, but she had definitely left a lasting impact with each of her performances.

“Pidge. We’re going back to the house now,” Matt says softly, giving her a soft tug.

She doesn’t react at first.

Pidge takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. It just doesn’t make any sense to her. She’d remembered the morning clearly. Nonna had been fine that morning. In fact, she’d been more talktative then she had been in a while. She’d joked with Pidge’s mom about Pidge’s moodiness being a possible sign of pregnancy. (Which wasn’t funny). She’d given Pidge a nice juicy kiss on her cheek and had sent her off that day with a smile.

How could she just go before Pidge could properly say goodbye? How could she be there one second and disappear the next?

Four weeks left to go.

Just four weeks.

She’d just wanted her grandma to see her just once as Odette.

Pidge’s lip trembles, but she turns and follows Matt when he gives her another gentle tug.

The rest of the evening passes by in a blur to her. She sits on her corner of the couch staring off into the distance, avoiding talking to relatives and other people who share stories about Nonna, just the way she’d have wanted them all to. Pidge just can’t find it in her to understand why anyone would be able to have conversations like this when her loss is still a giant, raw, bleeding wound.

There are several instances when her eyes start to feel like they’re welling with tears, but she forces them back and holds it together. Especially since her mother and aunts and uncles have cried enough for all of them. Some of them have travelled all the way from different parts of the country and she knows she should be more conversational, but Pidge doesn’t want to try.

She doesn’t want to do anything anymore, really.

When she’s had enough of all the stupid noise from all the stupid adults, she gets up and leaves their living room. Matt gives her a hug by the stairs that she barely acknowledges.

“I know how close you were to Nonna, Pidgey.” He holds her at shoulder length and brushes her bangs gently out of her face. “Get some rest, okay?”

His eyes are red rimmed too so she cuts away pointedly from him to head to her room. She doesn’t dare turn her head to look in the direction of the now vacant, cleared out bedroom close to the stairs. But a wave of peppermint and menthol hits her nose through the open door, and Pidge is barely able to hold her bile down by the time she locks herself in her own room.

It comes out violently, with remnants of the meagre dinner she’d choked down littering the liquid in her trash can in chunks. Her eyes water and she swipes the liquid out of her eyes harshly.

She wraps herself up in the quilt Nonna had made her year ago, curling up in a ball and shaking, but she digs her nails into her palms and stares at the wall, the fantastic photograph of her grandmother, a prima ballerina in her younger years.

Her timeless performance as Odette in one of her old productions.

A performance Pidge wanted to make her proud with.

A performance Pidge can never show her now.

 

…

 

Pidge skips practice for a week even if her ankle isn’t a problem anymore, and somehow, Allura doesn’t leave her a thousand furious messages despite her not showing up even though the show is too close to the opening date. She refuses to read or answer anyone’s texts though. She’s also missed countless phone calls but she doesn’t care. She knows what they’ll all say.

‘You and your family are in my thoughts and prayers. My condolences for your loss.’

They’re pretty words, but honestly fuck them all because their prayers won’t bring her goddamn grandmother back.

She does send a message to both Allura and Shiro though that she’s dropping out of the performance and to just go with Ina since she’s her understudy. She just can’t find the motivation. Her first performance in Swan Lake as a lead is supposed to have her grandmother in the front row seat, cheering her on. What’s the point if the most important person isn’t there to see her?

Pidge had failed. That’s it. She’d missed her chance.

She knows she’s had several visitors, but she’d made it clear to everyone in her family that she doesn’t want to be disturbed and thankfully, Matt turns them away. In fact, she’s pretty sure she hears Keith’s voice every once in a while. But she doesn’t want to see anyone.

Her mom makes sure to bring her food, kiss her forehead, rub her back for an hour, open up the window to air out her room. But her mother always has red eyes and her voice always shakes and she can hear her mother sobbing to her father late when they think she’s asleep and Pidge wishes she would stop coming in because she’s making it hard for her to keep herself in check. Pidge isn’t sure the last time she’s showered, but she’s been in bed for the past several days wearing the same pyjamas and at this point, she wonders if it even matters if she ever gets out.

She’s fully intending to waste away to nothingness, but when she re-enters her room one night after using the restroom, Lance is in there, leaning back against her desk with no expression on his face. She thinks she’s hallucinating for a second—she hasn’t slept in several days—but his eyes follow her and it almost makes her freak because _what the hell_.

“How did you get in here?” she snaps, her voice hoarse and throat dry from the maybe four words she’d spoken since that awful, awful day.

She doesn’t know what he even wants but she swears she is going to really rip him a new one if he even dares try to bring up the studio or coming to practice.

“Window.”

She doesn’t know if he’s joking or not, but his presence brings about a whole other kind of ache in her heart she really doesn’t want to deal with right now. She shuffles under her quilt and snarls up at him.

“Get out, Lance.”

He doesn’t say anything, but heads over to her and crawls onto her bed next to her. She’s about to shout at him, but he pulls her to him and tucks her into his arms. She chokes on an inhale, her eyes prickling from how gently he’s holding her, like he understands the tenuous hold on her emotions that she has. Despite their issues, he’s cradling her like he wants to shoulder her burden, like he’s telling her to lean on him. That he’ll be there.

(That he won’t ever drop her).

Pidge squeezes her eyes shut and takes deep, slow breaths in and out, forcing herself to calm down because she’s _not_ going to cry. Fuck Lance for showing up out of the blue and thinking he can just wedge himself in her life like this when she’d pushed him away for a reason.

“…I said get out,” she grits out.

“Katie… it’s okay to cry.”

She inhales sharply, plants her hands on his chest and tries to shove him away from her because no, she is _not_ doing this now and he has no right to show up randomly and try to force her emotions out. He doesn’t budge. Not even a little.

“Get out!”

But he doesn’t listen to her and just stays there, holding her gingerly and slowly carding a hand through her hair. She struggles a few more times, considers kneeing him in the crotch, but gives up when she realises he’s not going to stop being stubborn.

She falls asleep against her will at some point and when her eyes blink open, the sky is just starting to darken from the setting sun. Lance is still there, eyes closed, but she knows he’s awake because his hand is still rubbing soothing circles on her back. Her mother is also in the room, shutting her window so bugs don’t get in. They make eye contact and she gives Pidge a tired, broken smile before leaving the room to give her privacy.

When Lance has to leave for work obligations, he apologises that he couldn’t get out of them and though Pidge says nothing in response, she knows part of her misses his warmth and that he’d actually been a comforting presence. Lance leans down and presses a soft kiss to her forehead before he leaves.

And yet again, Pidge feels this overwhelming urge to cry that doesn’t abate until she bites the inside of her cheek hard enough to draw blood.

 

…

 

While she doesn’t want to admit it, the second week is slightly better. People have stopped messaging her, and she goes down for breakfast on her own, kisses her mother’s cheek, holds her mother when her mom starts to cry, even starts showering again and changing clothes. Keith stops by every afternoon and they make minimal talk about stupid stuff. He doesn’t dare bring up Altea and she’s glad, although there is a part of her that’s starting to get really restless cooped up in the house all the time. She doesn’t tell Keith, but she stretches every day because she hasn’t really given up fully on her dancing just yet. She also kind of wants to know what Allura and Shiro decided to do about her dropping out, especially since neither of them had responded to her message about dropping out at all.

Lance visits her every night between the time she knows rehearsals end and his bartending shift. Sometimes he’ll come after his shift before dawn and spend the early morning with her until he has to leave to go get ready for his class. Even though she’s not confining herself in her room anymore, he still sticks close to her, either tucking her into his side or hugging her for as long as he thinks she needs it. Admittedly, she does find comfort around him. Neither her mother nor father even question the one night Lance has off from work and sleeps over, cuddled up with Pidge. She has trouble admitting to herself that it’s one of the best nights of sleep she’s gotten in a while.

“You know…” Pidge mutters against his collarbone when they’re lounging on the couch with some dumb cartoons playing on the TV early one morning. “Nonna always kept telling me she hated this show.”

“Who hates Tom and Jerry…?” Lance murmurs sleepily.

“She said it was sexual tension and they needed to fuck. I was like, eight.”

Lance’s sudden barks of laughter are completely unexpected, and it makes something she can’t really fully understand in her heart twinge. A good something though. Bittersweet.

So she shares another goofy memory.

…

 

Three nights later, when Lance arrives, he comes up to her room with a white treasure chest shaped box. It’s not very big, but it is a little heavy. She’s about to look at some pictures her mother had received from one of Nonna’s old rivals-turned-best friends of their early days, so she welcomes the distraction.

She’s actually looking forward to his presence, especially because she’s a little scared of going through the photos on her own.

“What’s that?” she asks, then clears her throat when she thinks she sounds a little too eager.

Lance sits down beside her and pushes the box to her. “Something she left you if you’re ready to open it. Your mother found it under her bed and asked me to give it to you.”

Pidge doesn’t know if she’s quite there, but Lance slips his hand in hers and she feels a bit of renewed strength because of his steady support. She glances at him and he gives her a small, encouraging smile, his gaze soft on her.

And she suddenly feels an intense urge to apologise to him because she had said some absolutely disgusting things, but she doesn’t know how to even start taking back everything she’d said.

“I-I’ll open it,” she responds instead.

The first thing that she sees when she lifts the lid is Nonna’s old worn ballet slippers, torn up and used well past their expiration date. Pidge clocks in at a half size smaller, so she could have used them by now had she remained a ballerina.

The shoes are sitting on top of a bunch of letters. Pidge picks up the note at the top, written on monogrammed paper in Nonna’s beautiful cursive. It’s dated from the day Nonna passed away and for a second, Pidge’s heart lurches so hard in her chest, she can’t remember how to breathe. Lance must hear her breathing harshen because he moves closer to her and pulls her into his side and rubs her arm. Pidge takes a deep breath and reads it to herself. Lance politely looks elsewhere, and it hurts her heart how considerate he is to her.

_My dearest Caterina,_

_When you ran off to your classes this morning, I couldn’t help but watch you, amazed at how fantastic of a young lady you have become. Not to toot my own horn, but you remind me of me when I was your age, passerotta. Energetic, spritely, growing into your skills and becoming someone so extraordinary you leave everyone else in the dust. I am proud and honoured to watch you grow up into the woman you have become. Things aren’t going to get easier the further in your path you travel, but surround yourself with good people who care about you, who love you, and you will get through anything._

_And no matter what, don’t give up, my sweet wonderful granddaughter. Never give up in the face of adversity. No matter what difficulties you face. No matter how hard life gets. No matter what pain you feel, use it to your advantage and push past it with your admirable strength. Just promise me you won’t ever give up. I never did. So you can’t either, my love._

_Caterina, you are my precious little angel and you have a blinding bright future in your path. With or without me._

_But even then, I will always be with you._

_Every step of the way._

_I love you always,_

_Your Nonna_

The rest of the box is filled with letter after letter after letter that she’d apparently written to Pidge through several days. She doesn’t know how far back they date, but if the whole box is filled with them, this must be at least a year’s worth.

The same amount of time that had passed since she was first diagnosed.

Paper clipped behind the letter she’s reading is a photo she didn’t know her grandmother was even holding on to. It’s Pidge as a little two year old, wearing Nonna’s too big for her feet ballet slippers and pretending to pose like her favourite poster. She looks goofy with no teeth and her little dirty dress and her form is a disaster, but a laughing Nonna with her beautiful short wispy silver hair is holding an arm and leg to help Pidge assume the pose.

Pidge inhales shakily, putting the letter back in the box and closing her eyes to calm down. She’s not ready to go through the contents. Not yet.

But her grandmother’s words are strong, and Pidge can just hear her crooning voice speaking the words in the letter. She can just feel a bit of strength returning to her.

An ache to dance hits her hard, because she hadn’t realised just how much she’d missed dancing, but she’s also scared to dance because it’s the one thing that truly connected her with her grandmother, and she lost her grandmother and she can’t tell if she’s lost dance.

“Did I ever truly love dance?” she mutters to herself.

“If you didn’t love dance, you wouldn’t still be dancing after all these years,” Lance responds, and she looks at him when a rogue-ish smile forms on his lips and he jumps to his feet, taking her with him. “Feel like going out somewhere? You must be tired of staying in your home all the time.”

She’s not totally against the idea, and he is right that she wants to leave the house. “Where?”

He makes her put on something comfortable she can move easily in and she barely has her coat and scarf and hat on before he’s tugging her down the stairs. Her mother and father are on the phone with another relative and give them an inquisitive eyebrow raise.

“Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Holt. I’m kidnapping your daughter for a bit.”

There are no objections (which is kind of affronting to Pidge because Lance or no, he’s still a guy who her parents know nothing about), and he whisks her outside in the cold night and to her surprise, she realises the whole time she’d stayed in her house, it had snowed. It’s still kind of snowing now, but Lance doesn’t give her a chance to think about it before he’s pulling her toward a car parked in front of her driveway.

“You bought a car?”

“It’s Allura’s.”

Pidge frowns. “Is she okay? She’s not injured or anything, is she?”

Lance gives her an amused look. “Not injured, but she’s not really okay considering her favourite protégé pretty much disappeared off the face of the planet. She thinks part of the reason you want to leave is because she pushed you too hard and caused you to get injured.”

“What? That wasn’t her fault at all. I know how she gets around showtime. She’s not responsible for my own issues focusing. Can you let her know?”

“Or… you can tell her yourself when you come back.”

When, he says. Not if.

And she’s tempted to argue with him just for the sake of arguing, but she finds she can’t. Because she knows it’s true. She’s going to come back. She doesn’t know when, but it will happen. She misses dance. She misses Altea. She misses the steady relief she feels from dancing.

As Lance drives them through the city, she half expects him to take her somewhere to dance, but he stops at a public park completely covered in snow. He wastes no time in parking and pulls her trudging through the snow over to a gorgeous area where the fountain would be pumping out water and many snow-covered benches reside. There are some other people in the park just taking languid strolls, but it’s pretty empty, which is to be expected considering how cold November has gotten.

“I always come here in good weather to dance to the buskers playing music.” He gives her a dazzling smile that lights up his eyes and Pidge stares at him, chest hurting because she’d ruined a good thing and she’s not sure he’d be willing to revisit that particular relationship. “This is where Allura discovered me. It’s my favourite place.”

And before Pidge can respond, Lance picks up a scoop of snow from a bench and lobs it at her. It hits her smack dab in the face. Pidge wipes her face angrily, scowling slackjawed at Lance because did he really just do that?

“What the hell are you doing?!”

Lance laughs, picking up another chunk of snow and throwing it at her. It hits her coat. He throws some more and she moves sideways and avoids it.

“I’m just going to keep throwing this at you until you fight back!”

The next snow ball actually hits a pole near her which drops snow on top of her. And finally, _finally_ she snaps and lets loose, grabbing and throwing snow at him as she chases him shouting profanities. As he continues this annoying game of chase, it starts to be become less of an attempt to dump snow down his pants and more of a fun game of ducking and weaving, attempting to get the other while watching out for errant snow balls.

Pidge does catch up to him at some point because Lance stops moving abruptly, and she runs into him with an _oomph_. He stills her and her heart starts racing when he holds her gently.

He gestures upwards with his chin. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Pidge looks up at the sky. It’s illuminated by the full moon, the inky midnight sky decorated with glittering stars. There’s snow still falling down around them, shimmering like teardrops. It’s almost like the moon is shedding tears for her.

And then Pidge realises a tear is falling from her eyes. She gasps softly and wipes it up quickly, but it’s not the only one and the tears don’t stop tumbling down her cheeks and she keeps trying to wipe them more but they don’t stop.

“What the hell…?” she sniffles, rubbing her eyes with her sleeves, but her eyes won’t stop producing the annoying tears.

“There you are,” Lance whispers, cupping her cheek. “C’mon. I want to take you somewhere. Hold on to that feeling.”

And then Lance takes her hand and cuts through the park in the other direction from where they’d parked. As they approach a street, she recognises it. They’re actually near Altea, and when he crosses the street and heads to the back of the building, she groans under her breath. She stands there with a frustrated pout while Lance starts digging around a flower bed, turning over the array of fake rocks creating the barrier of the flowers.

“Are you about to use a rock to break a window? You can’t just break in, Lance!”

“Allura leaves a key under one of these rocks.” He looks over his shoulder at her and looks like he’s trying not to laugh. “When I was working my way to becoming a better dancer, she used to let me practice here on late evenings in exchange for me organising equipment and cleaning up the place at night. I don’t really need it anymore, but she said the offer still stands whenever I want to use it.”

He finds the key and gets them in the studio. Pidge is tempted to not come in, but Lance holds out his hand to her and almost unwittingly, she’s reminded of that first time they’d danced together.

“There’s no one here, Pidge. Come in.”

She takes his hand and follows him to a small studio room closer to the back doors. Pidge watches as he turns on the speaker box and then plugs up his iPod. In the meantime, she sheds her winterwear because the company is always hot and muggy indoors.

“Still have that feeling?” She nods, though she doesn’t like how her nose is still sniffly and her eyes are a bit tired. He hangs back by the mirrors to watch her as he scrolls through his playlist. “Take that feeling you had at the park and express it, Pidge. Don’t think. Just dance. I know you can do it.”

Pidge stretches out her sore muscles the way she likes to before a short dance session. Quick and efficient so she doesn’t lose too much time stretching. Lance starts up some music, something slow and melancholic with a guitar instrumental, and she can already feel some weird emotions welling in her when he gives her that encouraging smile again.

But she goes to the centre of the room, feeling a bit alien as she listens to the music. For all the dancing she’s done for so long, this is the first time she’s ever been so uncertain in her life. She doesn’t understand why, but starts to move.

At first she’s a little too stiff in her movements, feeling awkward moving her limbs after not having danced for such a long period of time, but dancing is not something easily unlearned and before she knows it, she’s found her groove as she listens to the music and lets it sway her. It fills her heart and travels through every inch of her body, flowing in and out of her as she feels her lips start pulling up into something of a smile. She’d missed dance something fierce and hadn’t realised how much she needed it to feel centred and stay grounded. Maybe when she gets home she can put on an impromptu show for…

And it hits her hard then that no matter what she does, Nonna will never get a chance to see her dancing again.

She’ll never see Nonna’s delighted claps. Watch that proud look she always gets when she watches Pidge. Hear tips and advice. Get that encouragement she’d always gotten.

Before she can stop it, Pidge lets out a choked sob, stumbles through a step and nearly stops dancing. She hears Lance tell her not to stop, and she pushes through her motions, her vision blurred entirely, but she doesn’t think. She just moves, exhausting her body as she continues to cry, pouring her heart out into each move and the jumps and she knows her form is sloppy and it’s unbecoming—she knows—but she still doesn’t stop. She hiccups and sobs miserably through the entire dance, broken by the music and overtaken by her overwhelming emotions but doesn’t stop moving until the vocals taper away.

She buries her face in her hands as she crumbles to her feet, but before she falls, Lance is suddenly there and catches her. He holds her close to him, gently swaying side by side as she weeps in his sweatshirt.

“It’s not fair, Lance! I was this close!” she screams, her guarded heart finally shattering as the torrent of her emotions pours out. “It’s not fair!”

He doesn’t say anything, just rocks her and smooths a gentle hand through her tangled hair.

“I miss her so much,” she wails, clutching the fabric of his sweater. “She was supposed to see me be Odette. And now she won’t.”

It’s over.

No more late night hangouts in Nonna’s room.

No more chatting until she can barely open her eyes.

No more dance sessions.

She’s gone.

 

…

 

Pidge honours her grandmother’s final wish that she never gives up and goes back to the studio with Lance the next day. She’s very surprised by the warm reception she receives from everyone. There are of course the condolences, and Allura and Shiro each get turns giving her an insanely big hug. Keith picks her up and twirls her around and then Hunk picks the both of them up and twirls them around. But oddly enough, the general consensus from most people seems to be that they had fallen in love with her prickly Odette and didn’t know how they would be able to find another Odette who could match the intensity that she put in her work. Even the bullying girls begrudgingly agree that Pidge has done a good job.

It’s a little shocking to her that Allura had refused to let her give up her position even though she’d tried to. Especially since the show is so close.

“That’s because we knew you would come back, Pidge,” Shiro says with a smile as he cuffs her neck gently.

“Pidge, you’re irreplaceable. And I’m sorry if I made you feel otherwise,” Allura adds, a slightly guilty look on her face.

Full rehearsals resume post haste, with longer rehearsals to make up for the missed time. There’s less than two weeks left and the show isn’t completely put together yet since they had been missing one of their leads. But even so, no one rushes her as she takes time getting back into the groove.

She’s still very much a technical dancer, but there’s a certain new level of emotion leaking into her movements that she’d never truly been able to add before. She knows it’s because her heart is broken, doesn’t know if she’ll be able to push through it. Lance reassures her time will dull the pain, but she won’t ever lose memory of the feeling and that it’ll help her grow as a dancer.

And best of all, she finishes her finale solo, but she never practices it in full or in front of anyone. Allura and Shiro have faith in her that it will be a showstopper and miraculous, and she hopes she doesn’t let them down. Or Lance, who she attributes greatly to helping her unlock those emotions she kept bottled up and tightly coiled in her heart.

And speaking of Lance, they start hanging out again, pretty much daily. The private dance sessions are no more, but she has dinner with him pretty much every day, sometimes with their friends, sometimes with her family, but more often than not with each other. He always drops her off at home, but she can tell he’s holding back. He still keeps his touches casually affectionate and any romance they had been building up between them is at a standstill while they reconcile.

It’s a little disappointing, truth be told, but she’s the one who ended whatever was going on between them, so it’s up to him whether he wants to go back down that road or not.

Normal rehearsals lead to costume fittings and dress and tech rehearsals and before she knows it, the night before opening night arrives briskly. She feels restless and scared, not because she doesn’t feel her usual same confidence going into dance practices, but because she feels like she needs to do something big.

Some big gesture to commemorate the strides she’s taken.

To commemorate the woman who she’d done all of this for.

Something meaningful in a way that will resonate with her and her Nonna.

It hits her as she stares at the poster on her wall.

Before she can stop herself or convince herself that she’s being crazy, she grabs her scissors from her desk and goes into her bathroom. Her breath catches in her chest when she does cut off the first chunk, but by the third, she’s snipping freely. She laughs a bit hysterically to herself, eyes welling a bit with tears because her hair had been something she was a little proud of, but this feels right.

When Pidge is finally done hacking at her hair, it’s jagged and slightly uneven and doesn’t really have the same shape as her nonna’s signature fashionable pixie cut.  She’s not surprised considering how poofy and thick her hair is, and she kind of thinks her hair makes her look like a boy in some ways now, but she likes it. And she does see her desired effect. Pidge can’t help the way her heart races at her own reflection when she stares at her version of an homage to Nonna.

Add a bit of height, slightly thinner more mischievous eyebrows, a wider nose, and a dreamy look in the eyes, and she’s a dead ringer.

Pidge steps over the hair on the floor on her way out and makes her way down the stairs to the living room to show Lance and her family.

When she gets downstairs, he’s arguing about a play from some baseball game tournament (whatever the hell they’re called) with her father. It’s kind of funny how her father always glares at Lance, but he clearly has taken a bit of a liking to Lance because her father seeks out his company willingly. Pidge can definitely see the way Lance has grown on her father. Even Matt has taken a shining to her maybe, almost-was-about-to-be boyfriend and they usually trade friendly barbs, having formed some sort of odd friendship.

(Which is why both she and her mother had made a pact to never mention the fact that she and Lance had sex).

No one really notices her shuffling through the living room until she comes to a stop by the couches. Her mother looks up and sees her first, and then does a double take.

“Katie…” Her mother’s eyes start to water as she covers her mouth with a trembling hand. “You look just like…”

“I know.”

Her father smiles softly and Matt even gives her a grin. She turns her gaze to Lance when he stands up and walks over to her.

“It’s really crooked and rough and I didn’t do it right because I don’t really know how to cut hair, and I feel like it’s not exactly fashionable and I hope Allura doesn’t blow a gasket or something because at this point, I’ve cut too much to get a clear shape but I needed to do this for _her_ and… and…”

“And you’re beautiful,” Lance interrupts, tucking a stray lock behind her ear.

“Lance…” Pidge smiles bashfully, toying with the bottom of her giant baggy sweater as she meets his sincere gaze.

She gets the distinct feeling that he would have leaned down and kissed her had her father not subtly cleared his throat behind them when the silence between them draws long. She instead settles for the warm hug Lance gives her as he engulfs her in his arms. She realises she’s crying again, but the tears aren’t as sad anymore and she clutches his sweater and lets out a soft laugh.

 

…

 

Pidge has done enough full length performances that she no longer feels nervous on stage, but once Siegfried and the swans disappear and Odette is left on the stage to show her committing herself to die, the nerves start kicking up. She hasn’t run this solo in full at all.

It’s risky, but she wants to do this right.

There’s a few beats before the pianist begins the composition. For those few beats where Pidge wanders around on stage aimlessly, her gaze pans out over the people. She sees her family, Keith’s supermodel mom hiding behind a pair of sunglasses, Allura’s husband apparently back from his business trip in England, Hunk’s adorable mom and dad, and other dancers’ families watching the show. She can’t really see the rest of the spectators in the seats in full because the lights are so bright and blinding.

But as she starts her solo, her breath hitches and she nearly trips on her feet, because there, right by the main middle doors of the performance hall she swears she sees her grandmother. She can recognise that posture, that height, that wispy hair style anywhere.

Nonna is smiling.

Pidge is sure of it.

And she can’t hold back anymore.

She starts sobbing halfway through her dance, giving in and not even attempting to hide her pain anymore. Pidge lets it consume her and guide her motions, translating the hole in her heart into her actions as Odette. She feels like she’s found a piece of herself that she’d never known existed, but she also feels like she’s lost so much of herself and she pours every one of the bittersweet emotions in her dancing.

“This one’s for you, Nonna…” she whispers to herself.

Every drop. Every leap and aerial. Every Valdez and kick around. All the leg raises and extensions. Her spins.

She puts herself on the line, not caring that she’s full on crying, that she probably looks horribly broken. At this point, she knows she’s thrown out more than half of the parts of the solo she’d thought she could use, but it doesn’t matter to her. She doesn’t stop moving, just wills herself to go through her dance, gripping her chest, spinning and letting her fall out of her pirouettes as if she can’t find her footing. It’s a little wild and a piece of her costume falls off when she rolls on the ground and she grasps it on a whim, staring at it like she’s damaged.

When it’s finally over, she lays on the ground, ending dramatically, like a felled swan.

She doesn’t really register what happens afterward though her shoulders are still being wracked with the heavy sobs that refuse to stop because this moment is too bittersweet. Too beautifully tragic. There’s very loud, wild applause and cheers as the curtains close before they start the curtain calls and she’s being swept off to the alcove on the side and Allura is full on crying and refuses to release Pidge from her arms and Keith looks a little messed up and even Hunk and Shiro have watery eyes. Everyone is all just a little emotional and she’s not sure if it’s the opening night jitters also hitting them, but everyone backstage is pretty much caught up in their feelings.

“I haven’t seen you dance like that since you were at your beginner years. You’re back. You’re back,” Allura blubbers over and over, holding Pidge at arm's length, her vivid eyes shining.

Pidge locks eyes with Lance when he and the other swans who had exited stage left return to the alcove on the right. There’s a moment when she’s not sure what she should do, and her heart is wildly racing in her chest and she suddenly feels lightheaded and breathless, but then he’s smiling proudly at her, warmth in that dark, expressive oceanic gaze and it’s suddenly obvious.

She runs right to him, takes his face in her hands to pull him down and kisses him right on the lips. Lance’s eyes widen in surprise, but he doesn’t push her away.

“I’m sorry,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “I’m so, so sorry.”

He searches her eyes for a second before grasping her waist to pull her into another long, drugging kiss. She wraps her arms around his shoulders, smiling as she rises to her tiptoes and relishing in the softness of his lips and the hand gently caressing her back.

“It’s okay,” Lance says against her lips. “It’s okay.”

And people around them cheer and make obnoxious ‘oooohs’ and she starts laughing. Lance presses his forehead to hers and she hugs him properly and it warms her heart and she knows that she’s not and never will be perfect, and it will still take a while to open her heart up fully and she’s still not ready to open up that treasure box of letters because the pain is too great, and she has a long way to go to learning how to dance with her soul, and losing her Nonna will never not hurt, but she knows she’s steadily getting there and she knows every step of the way, Lance will be there with her.

Even when she stumbles. Even when she falls.

Lance will catch her.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to know the songs they’re dancing to in various parts of the story (sans the actual Swan Lake performance music), here’s what I was using:
> 
> When Pidge is watching Lance and says she hates him: Birdy – Skinny Love  
> When Lance tells Pidge to demonstrate: Agnes Obel – Avenue  
> Pidge dancing messy when Lance spies on her and she falls: Sia – Elastic Heart (Piano Version)  
> Their spontaneous dance together: The Young Romans – Circles  
> The nu metal song: Korn – Freak On A Leash  
> The upbeat practice song at the Latin dance club: Romeo Santos – Obra Maestra  
> The sensual song at the club: Daniel Santacruz – No Me Sueltes  
> After the snow fight: The Head and The Heart – Rivers and Roads
> 
> I love all these songs immensely so yes I’m biased and snatched stuff from my playlists ^^


End file.
